• 1
  • 2
hurrengoa
denouncing pain / to calm the insides ainara gorostizu   I  ainara gorostizu Gotzon Barandiaran (Larrabetzu, 1974): “Arrakalak” / Xabi Borda (Azpeitia, 1981): “Birika puskak”

Lungs: "enable us to scoop up air as everyday life tries to strangle us."

Cracks: "craks can be something that has to be closed or things that can be opened. In a surrounding conflict I don't want a wholeness, perfection or ortodoxy. I need cracks, other point of view and references. A breathe of fresh air so to speak".
Gotzon Barandiaran: I’m publishing my first book at the age of thirty. I’ve been really calm about things. Because I needed to express my vision on what I’ve seen happening before me in the last two years in my environment and in the world as a whole. I don’t express my inner pain as my pain. I have written to denounce the pain I’ve had as a member of a community.

Xabi Borda: I, on the other hand, have written for myself because it is in the midst of numbers and formulas that I can find tranquility. I haven’t searched for that sense of community. I have expressed what I have felt and thought as an individual. And I haven’tdirected what I say to a group or community. I address myself to the individual.

GB: In my book I aim to express my opinion and view of things to the reader because I disagree with what the majority think about things that are important to me. I don’t ask people to think the same as me, but I do want to show that there are different sensibilities out there. Startiung with the simplest things, like relationships. All I ask the reader is that they approach with sensitivity.

XB: I ask for complicity, for them to try and delve into the book. The writing of a book obliges the writer to go on a kind of a search, and the reading of what you have written carries certain obligations for the reader.

GB: When you write you’re not conscious, as say in theatre, that you have a public there before you. When you write a book, you don’t know how the reader sitting at home will feel. You don’t write with that person in mind.

XB: You have an idea and that inspires you to write, look for a structure and complete a poem. I discipline myself to write, two a week. I go to class in the morning, read something and I write in the afternoon.

GB: Ideas, smatterings of words, images, music, film scenes... I jot everything down. Then I try and scuplt something out of the words. A poem is a process of reflection. What I see in darkness I try to bring light to. I like that modelling process, I really enjoy it.

XB: Not me. I normally suffer when I write. I suffer till I have finished the poem. Once I’ve finished I feel pleasure.

GB: I had a bitter-sweet sensstion when I finished the book. I’ve said a few things in thios book, but I still haven’t had my fill.

XB: My case is the contrary. This book really filled me and I haven’t been able to write anything since then. Zero.

XB: A writer must be commited to what they themselves and what they write. I don’t see anbody who has to commit themselves to society.

GB: I think that level of commitment is vital. Otherwise it’d be a farse.

XB: I think that level is enough.

GB: But I as Gotzon the person am commited in certain ways to my surroundings because there are things I just don’t agree with. I look for that when I write and it’s something I admire in the writings of others that I read. In my home, in my town, in my country, in the world... I need to position myself.

XB: But you do that as a person, not as a writer. You have commitments in life that you do not write about. When you are writing poetry you are not living. I don’t think that you have to write because of commitments you have in your everyday life.

GB: I think otherwise. I have an attitude in life and that’s what I want to write about. But I not into giving lectures. I write what I write to try and reach the people who read what I write.

XB: That’s the writer’s ego.

GB: It’s not a question of ego. I feel the need to share in another type of sensitivity. That doesn’t mean that you can’t write from an intimate point of view.

XB: I want to have an affect on myself, I don’t want to change anybody.