“Everyone has a Plan Until They get Punched in the Mouth.”
Mariano was my teacher a couple of years back when I was studying Advertising in Buenos Aires. Before publishing this blog post, I checked my notes of the classes I had with him. They are a package of random insights, leads, and thoughts I had during his “creation” class that made me smile. He was always preaching about how important it is to change points of view, think like authors, and have plausibility as a religion to create good content.
"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." With that phrase questioning us from the title begins the new book by Mariano Goscilo. And it is, if not a blow, a blow, a long title that stops you thinking about it.
What was the last punch that arrogance stopped me with? What do you mean by this? From the title, Mariano tells us how the reading of his modern poems will be: rewarding and demanding, fast and slow. Mariano writes as if he were the voiceover for your subway trip, your Friday departure, your draft therapy session. His previous book was transformed into a palette of forms that an idea can adopt in the media. This book stands as an urban collection of poems in which Mariano synthesizes with the wisdom and dark humor with which he takes his classes forward; the demons, joys and crises of a generation.
A book, a course of interior monologues, a sum of spaces for reflection; from the subway to the couch, and also from the bed to the living room.
This is a selection that Mariano shared with us last week first in Spanish and then our English translation from his amazing book “Todos tienen un plan hasta que reciben una trompada en la boca”.
Publisher: Milena Caserola, 2014.
Spanish Original:
1
THE ROCK
Un minero,
insatisfecho con su trabajo,
golpea más fuerte la piedra.
2
LO QUE VIENE
Una intensa lluvia cubre toda La Polinesia.
La mujer se levanta y, automática,
le pone la comida en su plato.
Pero el gato sale corriendo de repente.
Extraño comportamiento del felino:
ella vacila entre un ratón o un tsunami.
3
FUERA
Una seña particular propia de una tribu
no implica signo de pertenencia.
Si fuera por la cresta,
toda gallina sería punk.
English Translation:
1
THE ROCK
A miner,
dissatisfied with his work,
hits the stone harder.
2
WHAT IS COMING
An intense rain covers all Polynesia.
The woman gets up and, automatically,
she puts the food in the cat’s dish.
But the cat suddenly runs off.
Strange feline behavior:
she contemplates between a mouse or a tsunami.
3
IF IT WAS
A particular sign of a tribe
it does not imply a sign of belonging.
If it were for the comb,
every chicken would be punk.
