The Port Trilogy : Va al paraiso
Va al paraiso is, in the course of an unexpected journey, the witness to a discovery no less surprising. Valparaíso, elegant faded lady with majestic wrinkles, precious and delicate in your welcome; and you, humble porteño, beautiful porteña, who granted me the honor of crossing your gazes and welcoming my touched innocence into your warm hearts—these few words are yours, offered with all my admiration and gratitude.
Bruno Green, Valparaiso, Chili, février 2017.
This powerful, vibrant text, inhabited by a singular and dense poetic soul, is written in a rich, exuberant language—sometimes baroque, yet always purposeful. It stands as a true lyrical declaration of love to Valparaíso. The images, imbued with an active nostalgia—one that does not merely mourn but sublimates, that names in order not to forget, that transfigures ruin into beauty—strike with their intensity. Tinged with great generosity, this poignant evocation of the city and its inhabitants oscillates gracefully between sensuality, memory, politics, and poetry. It carries a voice full of lucid tenderness and gentle anger. In this blend of revolt and surrender, of flesh and ash, one glimpses the fleeting presence of Neruda, Coloane, or Sepúlveda.
Lecture Critique, Michel Baillargeon - 2025
La lunga notte is published by Éditions QazaQ as part of the Maison Poésie Brest collection as a digital edition,
and by Silent Graphics Éditions as an art book available on our Boutique page.
Valpo, worn soul, faded woman, you are a mirage, accumulated strata of grandeur and chimeras, a cluster of villages that eye and scrutinize one another, while your placid gaze follows the soaring flight of pelicans over the ocean ;
Southern Hemisphere, stars upside down, from your nipples erecting sporadically in the light flows toward your shores a magnificent, colorful decrepitude—a citadel to be taken where everything is given just as the essential hides itself,
proud southern courtesan languishing at the corner of a cape, your open arms awaited them, and you knew how to love indistinctly those marine spirits rescued from roaring liquid immensities, mad with your promises, drunk in dreams of your allure,
until your splendor slipped through their fingers.
