We live in lockdown. We are like birds in a cage, eating and drinking as we are told. This has been true since the beginning of time. In his cave myth, Plato knew how to show us that we only see shadows projected back to us. Anyone who believes that we live in freedom is mistaken. Freedom is a commodity that is as precious as it is scarce. This concept does not exist in a society where capitalism is the measure of everything. Nothing is true, and if anyone tries to get to the truth of it, the cost will be very high. Machado said: Not your truth, but the Truth; and come with me to seek him. It’s yours, keep it.
Pájaros, written by Pedro Serrano with a foreword by Josefa Parra, published by the Madrid publishing house El Sastre de Apollinaire and accompanied by a CD by singer-songwriter Txus Amat, is a work that examines in depth what we can call exclusion. That epidemic we had to experience in 2020 may be one of the themes of this work, but it is not the only one; this leitmotif can be a door to other things. The second untitled poem in the book may be poetic: «Defeat is not a word. / Defeat, I repeat, is not the Sanskrit word for / useful / bound / modifier / trickster / of / the task / that we have not undertaken.
This work, which is divided into two parts like a record, Side A and Side B, seems to us like the song of a poet who tells us what is not there, what could be and what is not. remember what we experienced and no more: «obviously a premonition pulls, / emotion cries, / brings us tears of captivity, / leaves bird ashes. / He hugs his brother, / he hugs his sister, / he wraps his arms around my heart. / He asks, gives you your name, then wants to hug you. / Lights. We will understand that when he approaches us/he extends his tree branch. / I set the table for five, / I placed the cutlery for six. That feeling of someone who is not there and is still waiting for him pervades the entire book. Serrano is a full-time poet with the power of association and brings her emotions to the rest of daily life. Because daily life is where the author of Pinoso moves. Because the place where this author easily deals with himself is daily life; Normality is where he finds his inspiration, where great universal themes take shape and are illustrated.
We can say that Pájaros is the song of the lost and the found. Life is the stages we pass by without seeing what is coming, because this is what life is all about on the path we travel: “The voice tells us: / “I paid the price / with someone else’s truth.” // Name / warm beginnings. / Die in your mother’s serenity, / die in your father’s restlessness. / Sufficient”. Sometimes, or almost always, living means dying every day, and Serrano shows this very well. It tells us about the death and resurrection of man, because that’s what poetry and life are, all the fires we surround ourselves with. But there is a human poetry in Serrano; That song about the nostalgia of someone who continues to search for the light, perhaps that enlightenment that fades as the days pass.
Pájaros is the chirping of the bird that greets life every morning, the map where he searches for the coordinates that will take him to his destination. If we had to classify Serrano’s poetry, we could define it as a song to the known, like a teacher trying to find an end in daily life. He closes his collection of poems with three revealing verses that sum it all up: “You will unravel my poems by lighting a match and / you will be surprised when it goes out.