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Creole Talk: The Poetics and Politics of Argentine Verbal Art
- University Press of Mississippi
- Chapter
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198 Creole Talk The Poetics and Politics of Argentine Verbal Art —ana c. cara Words, and alternative ways of talking, have habitually been the poor man’s currency in creole societies; forever, as well, have they served as weapons against oppressive authority, vehicles for solidarity among all manner of disenfranchised peoples, and instruments for extraordinary art. The man-of-words, as Roger Abrahams (1983) so compellingly demonstrated in his work on the West Indies, plays a critical role in negotiating and celebrating creolization and in achieving meaning in local creole communities . “Talk is never cheap,” observes Abrahams, underscoring how the everyday and the extraordinary in verbal expressive behavior are “chained to each other” and how skillful talkers deal in expressive exchange with a “profound notion of their own speech economy” (1983, xix). Similarly, though in ways unique to the context of the Southern Cone, Argentines also participate in the everyday formulations of a creole politics and poetics through talk. Martín Fierro, the main character of Argentina ’s national epic poem, for example, underscores the importance of words improvised and rendered in poetry, in “song.” He articulates what most Argentines recognize intrinsically: “El amor como la guerra lo hace el criollo con canciones” (Love, like war, is waged by criollos through song) (Hernández 1953, 81). While no creole language per se ever developed in Argentina, the conversational phenomenon that did emerge was nonetheless called “hablando en criollo” (not meaning “talking in creole” but “voicing creolity,” a more accurate rendering in English introduced here for the native, coded sense of the phrase).1 Additionally, a whole host of creole verbal art genres flourished , for which I here offer the analytical category “Creole Talk.”2 The two, in tandem, play an important role in the cultural and political negotiations and the artistic expression of everyday verbal exchanges and literary texts. Though distinct, hablando en criollo and Creole Talk are intrinsically in- Creole Talk: The Poetics and Politics of Argentine Verbal Art 199 terwoven; together they formulate a local, coded, discourse employed by Argentines that references everything “creole.” As a point of entry to the art of Creole Talk in the Argentine setting, I first focus on an exemplary case—the game of truco—before examining the more ordinary, everyday discursive matter of “voicing creolity” (hablando en criollo). After tracing the cultural and political context of Argentine creolity, I return to the art of Creole Talk and to the phenomenon of an Argentine creole poetics. Truco: An Introduction to Creole Talk In his essay about truco, an Argentine creole card game, Jorge Luis Borges brings to life this national pastime: “The game begins; the players, transformed into their criollo selves, cast off their daily behavior. A different self, an almost ancestral and vernacular self, takes over the game. In one fell swoop the language changes” (Borges 1984, 109). Indeed, one could say language or a creole way of speaking is the real contest in truco, the cards only a pretext for the conversation.3 Talk drives this betting game. “One must accompany each card with sayings,” explains Argentine critic and essayist Ezéquiel Martínez Estrada, who (like Borges) turns to truco to explore and characterize Argentine culture and criollo behavior in his celebrated book-length treatise on Buenos Aires. “Truco is a game of talk; conversation, refrains, and even poetry . . . constitute its incentives” (Martínez Estrada [1940] 2001, 191). Borges himself corroborates this with his poetically understated observation that, at the truco table, “more than once, the enthusiasm of the dialogue is excited into verse” (1974, 145). Most players will attest that losing the game is less a failure than failing to be an accomplished talker.4 Talk in truco is formulaic, ritualistic, and traditional; but it is also improvised, inventive, startling. Cards have both long-standing and newly minted metaphoric nicknames. As the game advances, players simultaneously repeat time-honored rhyming stanzas or invent new ones as they call out their bets and reveal their hands.5 Metaphors and allusions, as well as other verbal devices, color their talk: instead of saying flor (which indicates a specific combination of cards, but which also translates as “flower”), one might say olorosa (scented, fragrant, aromatic) or jardinera (flower cart, flower stand, gardener) to announce what one is holding, or simply name this card combination by reciting a rhyming verse: [35.153.156.108] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 08:06 GMT) Ana C. Cara 200 Alambre de siete hilos...