Ivón Gordon Vailakis
Poetry
Critics
Manzanilla del insomnio of Ivón Gordon Vailakis is a mixture of genealogical trees, memory registers, and an amalgam of geography and legends.
Ghosts from concentration camps wander through the verbal patios of Manzanilla del insomnio as if they transmigrated between cultures, elegies, gestures and maternal caresses.
In this poetic creation, memory and nostalgia become one another through remembrance, through recreation of a past, through glances that make remembering an unforgettable act.
It seems that the role of this book is to make the reader aware that poetry is beyond anything, memory.
The words of the poems become sacred rites.
The poet evokes the rituals performed during the Jewish high holydays, as well as the suffering Jews incurred by being exiled, and persecuted because of their beliefs.
The Semitic Diaspora and the personal memory are woven in this poetry.
This poet is able to weave the threads of different histories, the Greek, Polish, German, and Spanish without letting the threads trap the stories.
The themes of Diaspora and exile in this book confirm that memory is full of aromas and tastes that remain untouched.
Reading Manzanilla del insomnio attests that poetry is and continues to be an antidote against amnesia; it is a yell from the insides that transforms the past into present.
When words explode and they linger until insomnia, not even chamomile (manzanilla) can appease it, only poetry can change night into light.
María Fernanda Espinosa, Ecuadorean Poet
