Una pasión llamada Clara Lair (1996) - full transcript

Captures the life and work of famed Puerto Rican poet Mercedes Negrón Muñoz, also known as Clara Lair, through dramatization and interviews with her colleagues.

Oh, useless dream of a secluded life!

Insane typhoon of thunderous machines.

Dream of listening delicate,

.. .muffled

.. .echoes of people and things!

But you,

Clara Lair,

sinews at watchful bay.

You recoil at the slightest touch,

a whiplash, every unsettling noise.. .

I feel so detached at times. ..



so far afield.. .

I fit nowhere

nowhere do I belong.

The palm trees,

the tree frogs just sound,

plain landscape. ..

I'm just not ever there

I'm always, elsewhere.

How did we meet?

I was looking for a room

to rent.

So I went to a relative of mine

whom I knew had one.

She was not in.



But there was this
strange woman, enigmatic,

sitting on a rocking chair.

''Who are you looking for'', she said.
-''For Mercedes'',

I said. ''She's not in''.

''Well then, I'll leave and come back later.''

''Before you go'', she said,
''I want to ask you something,

we've never met but... are you in love?''

''Well'', I said, ''I'm always in love with love''

''I'll be leaving now, I'll come later''

And she says,
''well I just want to say that tonight. . .

. . .you may visit me if you like...

come visit me and we'll talk''

She left, and had not the faintest idea
of whom I was talking to.

When my Aunt came I asked her. . .

Who was that strange woman.. .

She was strange.

My Aunt said, my girl,

that was the great poet Clara Lair. . .

a cousin of Munoz Marin.

Her name is Mercedes Negron Munoz,

the poet Clara Lair.

Oh my God, she said I should go visit her.

''Well go'', my aunt said, ''she never
invites anyone into her home''

So that night I went to see her.

She was sitting in the balcony,
sitting in a old wicker chair. . .

smoking, gazing at the stars. . .

her eyes, as always, lost in space.

She said, ''you may sit here. . .

in another wicker chair she had, facing her.

When I sat,

but she neither talked or asked anything. . .

Well, I sat there smoking with her.

We were there about half an hour,

without saying a word.

She then broke the silence and said:

''you and I will be great friends. ..

. . .because although you are so young

you understand silence.''

Felisa, was intense. . .

of the very few in Clara Lair's inner circle. . .

My love, while I possess you
all mystery shall vanish...

Joy is only the dreams
where you mold things.

My love, while I possess you. ..

...the cementery itself is just
a corner of nards and roses.. .

My love, I was nothing till you made me. ..

It's as if I see her now,
the special way she had. . .

. . .of talking with her hands, with her eyes. ..

. . .she was one of a kind. . . unique,

. . .unique,

. . .that's what I felt, she was unique.

The man in ''Pardon'', the one is ''Frivolous'',

. . .they are all different men. . . frivolous. . .

The man in ''Anguish'',

. . .such lovely poems!

I was honored,

I received the most beautiful dedication

that she could have written... Clara Lair

in her book to another human being.

She dedicated her book to me,
and before she read it she said. . .

''To Yeyita Cervoni. . .

to live again

my forsaken lovers...

long dead in my heart...

in a soul like yours...

rejoicefull and sensitive... Clara Lair''

It was all a fantasy.

Fantasy. . .

But she lived this fantasy in a
way that would appeal to men.

If she loved someone...

she fantasized about it

. . .that the man was also in love with her

and she with him.

And from this she wrote poetry...
the poems were

...that's way those verses are so important...

real to her. . . but most were

. . .just dreams.

I met the ''greatest'' love of
my life in the States,

I loved him very much.

It was my fault that I lost him.

As I tell Clara this, I say,
''oh if I ever meet this man again''

She then tells me, with that self-assurance,

''that man will never return to your life.''

Who when gazing at a star,

the night of my death

wondering...

What has become of her?

Were are you?

What luminous and fanciful
hand clasped her inert body...

impelling her newborn in
an unworldly flight?

Who gazing at the moon

should recall that pale face.. .

that empty stare?

And the soul a cocooned butterfly.. .

wings flapping in her cloistered world.

Whom has ever loved as
intensely as Clara Lair did

will continue loving still in the fierce
dominions of madness

a luminous hell.

The ''Bitter Tropics'' of oblivion.. .

the fabled solitudes of illusion.

From a body torn asunder by despair. ..

Clara Lair's burning spirit

takes hold of her world. ..

The essence of her art lies
in the ephemeral

her forever fragile sense of life.

She sees life flow as through a delicate
play of mirrors and shrouds. . .

whose only inviolable dogma is
belief in the truth of illusion.

If a miracle were still possible

as trees that whither and reshoot
again from your clayful earth

and shield me from all harm

as in that hour of scents and flowers.

Clara Lair was a tall woman,

delicate. . .

Absent look, yet she knew. . .

She walked very slowly.

She looked enticing,
and with these long hands. . .

Whenever I would think to pass by
with some friends she would say

''Bring me gorgeous men,
Jacobo Morales, bring me David Ortiz'',

she loved to be in the company
of handsome men.

They all came and kissed her hands.

Mercedes was fascinating person.

Some thought she was sad,

but just the opposite.

She was a happy person.

In love with life

and she'd make up these stories,

what she believed to be true.

And she would make you
believe them, you see. . .

For example,

she loved...

she loved the actor Braulio Castillo.

The first thing she would say was:
''Did you see him in the soap opera?''

Mercedes, I'd say,
the only person I could talk about is of you...

I'm too busy in meetings and
administrative work...

She'd say ''Oh God, the man

was mesmerizing!''

''What an actor!''

Mercedes saw life through a lover's eyes.. .

She practically fed on love.

There is a fabulous story that
depicts just how she was.

She lived in a dreamworld, all was fantasy.

One time at her apartment
behind Governor's house,

she told me.. .

''Yeyita, did you know

that a Governor's detective''

-Luis Ferre was Governor at the time-

''. . .is in love with me,
he is a gorgeous man. . .''

''His name is Mario.. .

look out the balcony and
see if he is there. . .

ask him''.

''Mario, do you love Clara Lair?''

Imagine. .. so I look but no one's there,

I tell her so, Clara...

there is no one there, Clara

But I soon realized that
it was all a fantasy...

and so I told her
''Clara, Mario is here!''

So I yelled out
''Mario, do you love Clara Lair?''

''What did he say'', she said

Since you told me he could not talk, I said

''He made a gesture'' , I said,

''he said he does'' .

She says, ''He comes every morning''

and night ''by orders of the Governor''

Luis Ferre

''He comes to see how I am.''

She never locked her apartment.

She would place a suitcase,

but the door would remain unlocked.

Two days before she died,

I visited her at the hospital,

and she tells me:
''Damn... Yeyita, you can't sleep over...

they only let one person stay and
Rafo -a boy she raised- is here.''

''It's okay, Clara'', I said.

But the next day I went to see her,

she looked strange she said : ''tonight. . .

you must stay, with Rafo.''

You see, it was her last night...

So I said, ''I'll stay...''

I thought...

she would die, at any moment.

I needed to know, make sure,

if she still thinks of Mario

she fell asleep, when she awoke, I said...

''Clara, if only you knew who came by.''

I teased her.

''Who'', she said ''Mario came by.''

''But why didn't you wake me,

I love him so much. ..''

''And what did he say?''

''He told me that he had to go
but would come back soon...''

then he kissed your forehead
-because you were asleep-.

And she says,
''you should have woken me''

This was her last memory of Mario.

She continued loving him to the end.

She died of love.

Mario was her last love.

Clara Lair's glow was a candle's flame...

In an era of docile women. ..

Clara Lair stood up for her rights

as a lucid, erotic, daring woman.

She fought for a woman's right to vote

for a woman's rightful place in society.

At 20 years of age.. .

She wrote her excellent articles in the
prestigious ''Juan Bobo'' review.

She identified herself with
that tragic character

of the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen

and signed her name as Hedda Gabler.

Very cultured,

aristocratic,

rebellious...

Gabler, as she would later
call herself Clara Lair.

She fought to transcend
her mediocre environs

sacrificing any real love

for the sake of living it out through the

eternal spheres of her poetry.

It's the new generation of women
that this nation spawns.

Who obtain this vote,
that we today, will barely use...

They shall be brave women

numerously strong

who will have a place in culture

another in strength

another in the perfect wellbeing

another, the most considerate of them all,

the power to live,

proudly apart... haughtily.

Their was critics to Mercedes verses.

I, who knew her well,

and knew the deepness of her humanity

believe that she was ahead of her times,

ahead of the times we're
living today in uerto Rico,

ahead of her times. . .

because things are different now

from the moment she wrote those verses

from when she wrote those lines

when she wrote them,
everything was censured.

Even a romantic view of life, any excess

is frowned upon.

It seems she lived too much too soon

and she aged before her time.

I met her old,

thin.

But if you look into her past...
What a beautiful woman !

When you see those pictures
so lovely of Clara.

But was very ephemeral...

the beauty of youth... in Clara Lair.

But always retained in heart
her memory, amazingly beautiful.

Because she was poetry. ..

and love.

A woman's flesh has a rose's fate!

No sooner she blooms,
perfumes the air and flies

than others bloom to
entrap the errant butterfly.

While she wilts, turns ashen and dies.

A woman's soul has an ivy's fate!

It climbs and gropes round a
man's chest, gets tangled, adheres

and when autumn comes, it fades

and remains like a ghostly
impression on the stone.

Sleep my man child

sleep my strong child

that love's game doth
take its toll like death.

May your dreams take wing

billowed on the ether of lost hopes

that have marked your eyes

with such dark and painful circles.

May your dreams be soothed
by a sea of the senses

that has rendered your arms

so still so long at your flanks.

Out there, the moon the sea swells

the tropics furnace firing to burn.

Out there, the heart of the garden's poison

and the treacherous stars twinkling,

lighting the darkest dark

alabasters of black and white

seething caldron of the tropics

transporting the flesh to erotic heights.

Oh, sea swells, cease

oh, tree frogs.

That thus asleep or dead.

Who can strip him from my side!

Sleep my strong child,

sleep my man child,

life's dream grows in death's grasp.

That he love no other,

that he not love, not even me

that the earth forever his arms unhinge!

That he may forever sleep!

I'm one of the few who can say,

I enjoyed Clara Lair

for days and days on end

and she always,

always remained true to herself.

There are two Puerto Rican poets

that after I've heard them
recite their poems,

I can never hear anyone else.

They are Clara Lair and Luis Llorens Torres.

Because, Luis Llorens Torres
read his poems in such a way

his soul shone through, his virility,

his extraordinary personality

and Mercedes, likewise.

She'd tells me: ''Yeyita, my poems

must be read in a tired voice. . .

and never pronounce the last syllable...

and I also don't like

when they put the men that I loved down...

However bad they were with me. . .

cruel.. .

One must recite it with great
sadness, -ardo Adonis-.

One must not phrase it,
. ..You are my race.. .

but rather,
. . .You are my race. . .

. . . a great sadness

I hold no grudges...

these were the men I loved!''

Ok. . .

One had to delve deeply with her,

to realize the capacity

in her

to orchestrate

things.

She'd surprise you

how she...

if you assume a method...

she would use another
clearer and so simple.

She has a similar language
as Munoz Marn.

Because you know that
Munoz with a coupe of word...

Munoz was able to reduce a
paragraph into one line.

That's how she was.

Just as Munoz has his ways,

thus Clara Lair was,

just like that.

Mercedes, in my opinion,

was one of the most

intelligent women in America.

She was, in my opinion,
the poetess of Puerto Rico.

Without a doubt.

She was the best woman
poet in uerto Rico.

Without a doubt.

There's a beautiful poem
she dedicated to Finis Rincon.

She adored Finis as much
as her sister Felisa.

They were soul sister.

It's called, ''Letter to Ada Elena''.

Finis was living in New York.

Clara Lair was here in Puerto Rico.

And she wrote ''Letter to Elena''.

Ada Elena...

tonight

I saw the man you love.

You are lost out there

in that immense city

within the skyscrapers

your figure moves with tension

of silence and love

like a sphinx in flames.

Tonight I saw him

his proud regal shoulders

bowing slightly.

His disdainful eyes

treading tenderly over the crowd

so soft, those eyes,

wrought of all that is disdainful.

For a moment I thought,

perhaps he's sad.

Because you lay so briefly on
the crock of those shoulders.

Because so briefly did
he rest his eyes on you.

A short gladness glanced my tortured soul.

When suddenly, oh Ada Elena,

from whose eyes you heard
so much or naught

spewed forth a hearty laugh!

Ada Elena,

don't wait,

don't dream,

don't fantasize.

Look at love as it glances by

like a humming bird without a care.

Do not wreck by cloistering

the flower of your gardens.

Do not weigh in gold

what the wind dost take.

Love is brief.. .

fragile. ..

.. .small.

Instinctive sunflower

flitting thoughtlessly from one dream

to another.

The man you love,

obey,

you and I, do not.

Ada Elena,

a thousand men greedily tread the streets.

The lights are bright.

The wine in amber shades

in hues brush life so lovingly!

Laugh, flee, go mad...

And when sleep comes...

Do dream the oblivion

of the beast that's spent.

In me I join two opposites,
that all should fall in place

I dreamed clear water
amidst the slimy pool.

In tears my eyes my lips in shreds

and his unmerciful voice
wanting me to smile!

My body watchfull silence
bleeding its lament

and his unmerciful voice wanting

wanting beauty from my flesh

my soul wrenching in hell, in penance,

and his unmerciful voice wanting

exacting beauty from my flesh

easy flesh, pliant to any touch!

Weak and treacherous flesh,

with talons inviting!

For all the same hasty excitement.

Wanton as a bitch. ..

fickle as a cat.

Her first love. . .

''Clara, who was your first love?''

She was just a girl,

but it was the ''etronio'' of her life.

Alfonso Lastra Charriez.

A prominent lawyer.

He was the first man in her life.

He was her etronio.

Better off in a lapel than
in a garden, this rose.

He loved all that was precious,
all that shone.

He only had eyes for the darkest hue.

The open petals, the bronzed metals,

and his ardor, for the reddest
pomp in scarlet splendor.

There burned in him the
vaguest yearning to have it all.

The marble palace.
The mud-strewn trough.

The finest lady, the braying whore.

The exquisite emotion the direst hole.

Yet being so beautiful,
so strong, fortune's child.

He was loved for what
in others garnered hate.

He crossed my path,
running blind and lost

ailing from pains no other bore

trampling the roses,

and forlorn to see

what lay strewn in his wake.

Trampling virtue, reeling from evil.

Striking like a bolt, fragile as glass!

-The Prince Don Felipe-

He was her deepest love,

-The Prince Don Felipe-

It was not really love

rather an illusion,
one of her many eternal illusions.

She told me that when
she went to New York.

She had to find a job,

so she learned shorthand and typing.

She worked in a factory, typing, whatever.

One day,

they tell her that the factory
owner is coming.

He was an Admiral in the army...

He arrived and greeted everyone. . .

and when he reached her desk,

he looked at her for a long time,

and said ''Clara! '',
without knowing her name,

he made it up.

He said : ''Clara,
I'm leaving you my address before I leave

Because I want to invite
you to dine with me.''

He then inspected the factory,

but before he left

said to her: ''Clara, I'm expecting you.''

She told me that from the
instant she saw him

she fell in love,
because he was gorgeous.

She said : ''Well I'll go and see.''

She dressed, she's always
in shrouds and shawls

those shawls...

her lace dresses...

She took a taxi,
''...take me to this address.''

It was where he lived...

''He invited me to dinner.''

When she reached the place,

she looked

and saw that it was a
mansion like a castle on a hill,

...it was called Villa Lair.

...Violet lighted, all so beautiful.

She was so emotional

that she told the taxi driver:

''Take me back home. . .
I've decided not to stay.''

And so she returned...

She told me: ''Yeyita, I turned back

because that illusion of seeing him,
of falling in love...

Visiting his house, dining with him...

Maybe, that dream could
have been destroyed...

Reality would have taken over...
He may have wanted to possess me...

So I stayed home,
and I've dreamt of him all of my life...

But, when war times,
I hoped he would be stationed in uerto Rico,

to see him again.''

She dreamed to see him again.

She lived in her memory,
his name was Felipe,

and she baptized him
-The Prince Don Felipe-

When we met,

of what did we converse?

Of the sumptuous tropical dawns.

When the grackles sing reveille

enraptured among the poplars?

Or your run through transparent seas.

When the swiftest ship of your fleet

chasing gulls

hoisted a contraband of
the rarest sapphires.

It was the mundane office scene

and through the horror
of a grotesque lamp,

I saw you coming, no eyes, no prism

and we talked of family and duty

of what you were for others

and what I am not for myself.

The hours turn...

the enslaved clock whirls

among some misplaced sheet of paper

or misconstrued calculation.

And as I leave... a moonless night!

And the evil din of fortune

turned steel on the rooftops.

Her last moments...
when I had to bring her down the stairs...

I couldn't do it alone, I physically couldn't.

Two policemen did

to take her to the hospital.

What a hassle!

''I'll never forgive you,

Felisa, I'll never forgive you'', she said.

On the way to the Literary Society
and Carnegie Library

there were some poppy flowers.

She used to pick them and place them at
her waist in an old belt she had...

She used these long cotton dresses,

she always wore, always the
same dress and with her flowers.

When she passed away,

a group of us met in the Literary Society,

we gathered there for her wake.

Her friend Geigel Polanco spoke there,

... a small group

a group of us.

There were several wreaths.

I said : I'll put on her coffin

these poppies flowers
from the Literary Society,

. . .now thinking back, I feel like crying.

I went and cut some poppy flowers.

Felisa told me: ''Yeyita,

go with my secretary

and get a dress,

we have to dress her,

when she's in the coffin.''
-Felisa wanted a fancy dress-

So then I went with her,

But wait, I said: ''What color is that dress?''

''Black'', she said.

So I said: ''Lets go to my apartment

I have a green scarf,

so she will be put to rest with that dress

and my green scarf, of chiffon,

around her neck.''

So we went to apartment... because she

was so musically green.

There was this very moving moment.

Before they buried her,

some words parting words were requested.

Geigel Polanco gave her a
wake in the Literary Society,

but then Munoz Marn,

held another ceremony.

Munoz Marin focused her life
as a woman and poet.

And then...

Someone suggested that a poem
by Clara be read, to say farewell.

They said: ''Yeyita, you do it''

''Oh, not me...''

Then Geigel Polanco said : ''Yeyita,

send Clara off with a poem...''.

So then I read the poem,

''ride''.

In front of the coffin.

Lets see if I remember...

And the world's icy truth shall

feel my warmth

tensing my lips to all sombre passion

then shall the touch of my hand
be a clash of marble

and my hive will silence avidly ferment.

Death will finally come to this absurd
beautiful woman's artful guile and love.

Yet no trace will you find of
this inane fact in my funeral shroud!

My lips sealed, my hands in nails
and to the worm in pride I take

the tail's end of my lineage,
laying in the coffin.

Clara was a profound person, divine.

In the middle of a conversation she
would suddenly stop, remain mute.

Romantic.. .

She was so divine.

Unforgettable.

I loved her so. ..

She was my mentor. . .

Yes.

Merce, I'll never forget you. . .

Never.

I believe in clouds, the moon, the stars

in all that is beyond and unapproachable

and I believe in ten surprisingly
beautiful things

strange flowers hewn in the rough
hands of the fate that bore me.

And since I find peace more
so in flutes and violins

than in some fiery speech or gunpowder.

Since young, more than
Napoleon, Marx or Lenin...

I loved Mozart as a child,
Chopin, Beethoven...

With her strong, deep grasp of words

Clara Lair builds a compelling
poetic and journalistic work

heretic, tortured, and yet serene
and lucidly feminine.

With no hysterical theatrics
or vulgar excesses.

Without betraying her womanliness

this exceptional poet

this uerto Rican so ahead of her time

bravely and intelligently
fought for woman's rights.

Clara Lair is clearness in
the face of the slow abyss.

Obsessed with the truth of her deliriums.

She sought to fix at the
very heart of our language.

The dark, fierce splendor of her poetry.

Never in verses did I compete

nor tow the line in consonants,

metre and beat...

It was always the idea
bursting through the line

that my need for harmony

did entwine...

Looking withing me deeply, profoundly so,

has freed my chimera from the lie

of sending a word out to the world

when that word, I still await...

Body in shackles, in knots, in emptiness,

soul sans walls, boundaries, end...

Where my illusion of the world ends,

there I begin to anguish for the stars.

Oh, the surge of that voice broken
by the cruelty of centuries.

That I still hold in cherished memory

as the highest tribute to my verse!

Oh life, heaven and earth

Before the cruelest winter
does with its mask me entomb. . .

please let me one to one caress,

the eerie dust in what beauty is encased !