NEW: A la vuelta de la rueda // Christian Compagnon

By the end of 2018, the launching of the book of the Chilean poet Christian Compagnon took place edited by Juan Pablo Fante, and we were part of it by means of our services of designing and diagramming.

Sebastián Arancibia , editor of Naranja Publicaciones, wrote a text for the presentation of the book and we want to share it.

We met Christian during last Fall.

That time, even when we do not remember if it was during the first or second meeting, somewhat suspicious, but later with more confidence, he showed us a red notebook with his poems. Lots of poetical and everyday notes that, showed greatly his virtues in the intimacy of a notebook.

When we saw together with the other Sebastián the original notebook and the texts in word format, we realized that the texts were eager to return to the previous format, keeping the corporality of the notebook, its size, its capacity to contain texts (of any type) which has different rhythms that the same as a coffee stain or tarot reading, it expresses it the nooks of the letters, in the white of the page, a particular state that corresponds to a specific time, in this case, which is always past. A mental state finally. And whose value, the same as the books, lays in the preservation of the memory. Write down and publish so we do not forget or it isn´t forgot.

The space of a notebook is of such an intimacy and opening, that we cannot stop mentioning that quotation of Blanchard in his “poetic of space”, where he tells the moment in which Rilke and two mates realized that in the deep night “a lighted window in a distant cabin, the last cabin, the one that is lonely in the horizon before the fields and tanks” and he adds soon, “ even when we were very close to one another, we continue to be three isolated that see the night for the first time.”

That detail that opens a universe, the one to discover the night by the solitude of the light, it is the one that deeply moves the poet and isolates him from his mates. In the same way that, that lonely light is the one that moves someone, the notebooks in their intimacy send us a different knowledge over our perceptions of the world, each time that we look at them again, since all those notes are in a virgin state, still with their cross outs, corrections, etc.. Each interposed space in the notebook tells us about a decision influenced by an external element that impacts in the intern one. Each time that we return to the virginity of our notes, we discover new meanings or assessments from the changes that we have had.

The value of writing down for us was extremely meaningful, above all, the appraisal that Christian does of his own act. Also we felt important the variety of styles, regarding the shape. Huge print letters that with two words the page as full, and other smaller letters a bit faster. Neglected texts, empty pages. Colors of ink, drawings. All these visual elements that appear all of a sudden at first sight almost announcing as quick reading texts-that, of course are not- show signs of the time of writing. How long took him to fix an idea. In translating it to writing in the space, in making permanent but not always evident the corporality of the moment in which it was written.

Christian´s work and the conception that he himself had of the publication fitted perfectly with our line of work. We, as Naranja, work with experimental editions that, finally, pretend to make evident that all the elements of a book, material, or immaterial, tell us something, and under that understanding is that we try to think how we are going to read each one of the elements. What the information each of them delivers us.

That is the reason why, I repeat, the texts in word were eager to approach to a notebook format. But “At the turn of the wheel” is not an exact reproduction of that notebook or a summary of all the existing notebooks. Neither could we say that it is a traditional book. It is a re-interpretation of the times and shapes of writing, besides re-interpreting the elements of a notebook. A timeline of one period of Christians’ life and that appears at times in the book, in its original manner, as you will see in the digitalized pages. We understand “At the turn of the wheel” as a sequence of moments, both in the process and in the reading, after all it is the essence of what the book is, since the use.

Besides, unexpectedly, Christian asked us two demands related to ludic-poetic components for the book. One is that by means of a wheel the relations among poems and images are selected; the other is called “Pepito pays double” in which through transparent bands hundreds of different poems may be made. This ludic component proposal constitutes highlights for the reader in the reading time that tells us that the work, when published, when make it public, visible, leaves the evidence that it only exists in the moment in which the reader approaches it and experiments it physically. And its existences are and will be so multiple that constitute a universe in themselves.

A la vuelta de la rueda de Christian Compagnon

We deeply thank Christian´s confidence, his clarity, his openness in all the conversations and meetings that allow this project to come true.

For us A la vuelta de la rueda has been a huge challenge from which we have learned a lot and we wish it the best of success. We hope that this work gets to all the readers that deserve reading and using it, having so many existences as possible.