Mandorla – 2012

A literary, though not a little, magazine, Mandorla is published by the Department of English at Illinois State University in Normal, in collaboration with Southern Methodist University, where its founding editor, Roberto Tejada, is a distinguished professor of art history. Tejada’s interest in interdisciplinary research and synergies infuse the magazine with a focus on the creative process and the synthesis of multiple art forms. This 542-page tome is the 15th issue of the magazine, which started in Mexico in 1991 and has been published yearly under the current aegis since 2004.

A literary, though not a little, magazine, Mandorla is published by the Department of English at Illinois State University in Normal, in collaboration with Southern Methodist University, where its founding editor, Roberto Tejada, is a distinguished professor of art history. Tejada’s interest in interdisciplinary research and synergies infuse the magazine with a focus on the creative process and the synthesis of multiple art forms. This 542-page tome is the 15th issue of the magazine, which started in Mexico in 1991 and has been published yearly under the current aegis since 2004.

The name of the magazine is Italian, literally meaning “almond.” The almond shape will be familiar to most readers from its use in images that range from the coat of arms of Guam to the official seal of Johns Hopkins University and from the halo of light surrounding many medieval renderings of Christ and the saints to art portraying Buddha and the Bodhisattvas. Geometrically, the mandorla is the space where two overlapping circles of equal diameter meet. The mandorla has been described as a yonic symbol, was adopted by the Freemasons as a repeated theme in their imagery, finds its way into the practice of sacred geometry, and makes its appearance in art based on the teachings of Kabbalah. To mystics and philosophers it represents the space where opposites— science and art, masculine and feminine, heaven and earth, past and future—intersect, and thus the growing edge of consciousness, where new truths emerge. The editors’ view is that the title “alludes to the notion of exchange and imaginative dialogue that is necessary now among the Americas.”

The magazine is multilingual, with most works in English or Spanish; this issue leads off with a macaronic poem by LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, “What the Wind Whispered to the Little Dolphin,” which includes words from Hawaiian, Yoruba, Cherokee, Malay, Quechua, Papiamentu, Tagalog, and Nahuatl. Though the most varied, Diggs’s work is not the only macaronic form published here. The experimental characterizes much of the work in Mandorla. Underlying some of the creative experimentation appears a rage against the machine, including even (or especially) the limitations of language itself. Hip-hop, Portuguese, and various regional dialects of English appear, in many cases daring the reader to follow the author down his or her thorny path to meaning.

Camilo Roldán’s fascinating “Introduction to Nadaismo” provides a scholarly preface to his translations of Nadaist works by Gonzalo Arango and Jaime Jaramillo Escobar. Though there is a political element to this Colombian literary movement, its primary identity is as a cultural phenomenon. Roldán considers that Nadaismo “has played a major role in the history of Colombian literature and popular culture. . . . [and contributes] to the individuation of Latin-American literary traditions in respect to the dominant, Euro-centric canon . . .” Arango writes in his poem “The Nadaistas” that “The Nadaista is young and resplendent with solitude”:

is an eclipse beneath pallid neon
and the telegraph cables
is in the uproar of the city
and amongst the skyscrapers
the marvel of a flower stained purple
in the ruins of madness.

Some translations appear in this issue—notably a lengthy excerpt from the poem “Sagesse” by H.D. (the American Hilda Doolittle, 1886-1961) by Ana Rosa González Matute, a Mexican poet—but many works require knowledge of, if not fluency in, Spanish. One of my favorite selections is the only work shown in two columns—English on the left and Portuguese on the right. Here, Matthew Goulish contributes a record of “Writing from the Performance,” in which he describes the genesis and execution in Rio de Janeiro of a piece of performance art inspired by a fragment of text by the poet Elizabeth Bishop. This record is at once mundane and transcendent—it’s within the mandorla formed when life and art intersect.

Poetry, fiction, memoir, essay, drama, visual art, an interview, and excerpts from larger works all appear in this issue. The literary critic Anna Deeny contributes the excerpt “Things We Lament: Marosa di Giorgio’s Clavel y tenebrario,” a lovely disquisition on meaning in the late Uruguayan poet’s work, relating it persuasively to the military dictatorship under which she lived, the crucifixion in Christianity, and the book of Lamentations.

“Two Ekphrastic Texts from Ford Us Over,” by John Pluecker, are a prose poem and a poem that describe reproductions of a couple of pieces of Western American art. Pluecker provides little context, but writes with an immediacy that communicates the appeal of this literary form, in which one art medium is used to experience another. The interconnection of visual art and literature here is a mandorla in action.

Cover art for this issue (in color) and a three-page portfolio (in black and white) is by Christine Nguyen of Los Angeles, a musician and artist. Her images are deliciously organic, and her inspiration by the freedom found in nature fiercely evident.

It’s a good thing that Mandorla is an annual. Even a bilingual reader could need a whole year to absorb both the content and the implications of this issue. The challenge entailed in moving through the works is well rewarded by the stimulation of the senses and the welcome test of comfortable concepts that result.
[www.litline.org/Mandorla/]