POETAS BRIGADISTAS I

JOHN CORNFORD

(Cambridge, 1915 - Jaén, 1936)

"A letter from Aragon"

This is a quiet sector of a quiet front./ We buried Ruiz in a new pine coffin / But the shroud was too small and his washed feet stuck out. / The stink of his corpse came through the clean pine boards / And some of the bearers wrapped handkerchiefs round their faces / Death was not dignified. / We hacked a ragged grave in the unfriendly earth / And fired a ragged volley over the grave./ You could tell from our listlessness, no one much missed him. / This is a quiet sector of a quiet front./ There is no poison gas and no H.E.3 / But when they shelled the other end of the village / And the streets were choked with dust / Women came screaming out of the crumbling houses, / Clutched under one arm the naked rump of an infant. / I thought: how ugly fear is. / This is a quiet sector of a quiet front. / Our nerves are steady; we all sleep soundly. / In the clean hospital bed my eyes were so heavy / Sleep easily blotted out one ugly picture, / A wounded militiaman moaning on a stretcher, / Now out of danger, but still crying for water, / Strong against death, but unprepared for such pain. / This on a quiet front. / But when I shook hands to leave, an Anarchist worker / Said: "Tell the workers of England / This was a war not of our own making, / We did not seek it. / But if ever the Fascists again rule Barcelona / It will be as a heap of ruins with us workers beneath it."

"Poems from Spain: British and Irish International Brigaders on the Spanish Civil War"

Edited by Jim Jump - 2006

La actividad revolucionaria y la poesía, la política y la literatura se convierten muy pronto en pasión vital y razón de la existencia de John Cornford. Con apenas 17 años publica un célebre y demoledor articulo, titulado “Left?”, en la Cambridge Review, en el que arremete contra los representantes literarios de la burguesía (Eliot, Pound, Lawrence o Joyce), la ausencia de compromiso social y el capitalismo rampante. En el verano de 1936 se encuentra de vacaciones en Francia donde, tras tener conocimiento de la rebelión militar fascista, cruza la frontera a principios de agosto, siendo uno de los primeros extranjeros en acudir al auxilio de la república. Cornford se une al POUM y lucha en el frente de Aragón y, ya como miembro de las Brigadas Internaciones, en la defensa de Madrid (otro Brigadista, Bernard Knox, cuenta en sus memorias que en el edificio de Filosofía y Letras, parapetados con sus ametralladoras Lewis tras barricadas hechas con gruesos volúmenes, las balas enemigas "sólo" penetraban hasta la pagina 350...) A finales de 1936, formando parte del 121 Batallón es enviado a Andalucía, combatiendo en la cruenta batalla de Lopera, en Jaén, donde fallece ametrallado un 28 de Diciembre, al día siguiente de cumplir 21 años.