Review of Isabela Basombrío Hoban's book "Nothing belongs to everyone" (Nada pertenece a

todos).

By Dr. William M. Morse, M.A., Ph.D., Educational Consultant, Flutist, Connecticut, USA.

William is the son of Mathematician Marston Morse, whom he references in the review.

Music and Iridescence

“Don’t worry about saving these songs!

And if one of our instruments breaks,

it doesn’t matter.

We have fallen into the place

where everything is music.”

I can imagine no better introduction to the poetry of Isabela Basombrío Hoban than

these magical lines, the inspirational words of the Sufi poet, Rumi as translated by

Coleman Barks.

.....

As a young boy, I grew up in the shadow. I’m referring to my Dad (Marston

Morse), his friends and colleagues. Robert Frost and T.S. Eliot on the one hand,

Albert Einstein, Kurt Gödel, J. Robert Oppenheimer....

In this fairy tale world, how does a young boy, as he grows up, find himself?

Where does he turn for light? Music and poetry. Let me back up. Robert Frost’s

biographer lived in Princeton. Dad and Frost met at Kenyon in the 1940’s, where

they both received honorary degrees. For years, when the poet would come to

Princeton to see his biographer, my father and he would meet in private (Frost

insisted) for dinner. I remember asking Dad, years later, “What did you talk

about?” “Logic.” Poets, like mathematicians, are on another wavelength. “Frost

didn’t understand logic.”

Neither did I. I had to find my own place in the world, away from mathematics.

Shelves that surround me today are filled with a lifetime of music, along with

literature and poetry. And yes, history of science. The Psalms, The Book of Songs,

The Old and New Testament, Rumi, Tao Sze, Dante, Goethe, Rilke, Rimbaud,

Apollinaire, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, as well as Robert Frost. From

Ireland, William Butler Yeats and Seamus Heaney. From Latin America, Neruda,

Borges, and Peru’s César Vallejo. And now, next to all of them, Isabela Basombrío

Hoban. Nada pertenece a todos. Nothing belongs to everyone.

Is this a dialogue, or a monologue, a search for self or a celebration? These probing

assertions, are they questions or revelations? With poem after poem, the

autobiographical quest comes in many forms, The search is relentless and the

effect is hypnotic.

“Your silence is the sound I hear the most

Your absence is the presence I feel the most

Your return a farewell that accompanies me

With the intensity of a whole generation about to bloom

For that reason, I composed a poem to iridescence

Trying to take the hint

But the poem slipped away from me as the rays of light dissolved

In a blink of an eye

Submerging into semi-darkness”

Soulful, searching, meditative. Questions and probing without answers. From her

Peruvian world of mountains and sun, to Ireland’s world of green, of lakes, of

clouds and rain. Celebrating all of this, challenging as well as puzzling over it.

“Taking long walks on a path full of you

I am guilty of reading the unwritten

Writing to unburden myself”

Spectator? Protagonist? Dialogue? Monologue? Whether in Spanish or English

this is a poem of 30 takes, 30 versions. Relentless questions, puzzlement

and introspection, Absolute wonderment and celebration.

“For me, you are in the air...."

"Carrying a precious wisdom

That nothing can take away

And nothing can adorn

Not even breath

Not even death”

Certainty and celebration, accompanied by uncertainty and puzzlement. Variations

on a theme. The incantation draws you in. And the effect is magical and mesmeirizing.