For Professor René Jara, who knew that books were about life, by Anya Achtenberg
A former student remembers our colleague René Jara
When I first began taking courses with Professor Jara, I was going through another round of undergraduate work, having discovered that I loved the Spanish language and its literature, and needed to know more of the cultures and struggles of Latin Americans. I did not actually know then that I was part Sephardic; I had not had the experience of meeting "cousins" in New Mexico who were descended from Sephardic Jews also expelled from Spain hundreds of years ago, nor had I had the experience of the caretaker of a synagogue in Istanbul taking one look at me and speaking to me in Ladino, the Judeo-Spanish language the Sephardim took with them into diaspora.
But I was indeed in love with Spanish, and a bit terrified of returning to school after a rough coming of age in New York, and plenty of blows telling me I simply was not good enough to learn much of anything. In secret I had been reading the poems of Neruda and Lorca, Vallejo and Hernandez, out loud, and struggling from page to page to decipher them. After moving to Minnesota from the east coast, I pushed past fear to return to school, and suddenly I was in René's class. And I kept taking René's classes, semester after semester.
This man could drink coffee, and indeed did. Way too much. I doubted he slept at all; indeed, who could, having read as much as he did? And loving every word, clearly. I wrote down as much of what he said as I could, and I know that he found those notebooks quite, let's say, complete. I don't doubt that writing out what he said in class has contributed to what I do know of the Spanish language. There are still moments, after years of having dropped the work to concentrate on the English language in my own writing of poetry and fiction, that my tongue is freed and my Spanish moves well.
What I found in studying with René was enormous intellectual stimulation; an infinite passion for language, for the complexities of texts and the mysteries they hold; a way for a fierce sense of justice to be incorporated into the hard good work of university teaching; and an embrace of all of his students, me included. What I found that was absolutely irreplaceable for me was a brilliant and passionate scholar and a master teacher who somehow managed to convey to me that I was, indeed, quite smart myself. This may not mean a great deal for some people, but with my origins, this was life-changing, and it is something I have worked to do and continue doing in my own teaching: to convey my true belief in the gifts of the people with whom I work.
I always connected to the things he told me about his life growing up in Chile, most especially that his mother was illiterate. (Perhaps my memory is wrong; perhaps his mother was college-educated, a teacher, but my memory holds this conversation.) I always sensed that he was speaking for more than himself, and his hunger for reading and learning was something I could understand from my own experience, my own background.
I cannot recall his support of the best in me, of that synthesis of the very cerebral and the very compassionate, without a deep sense of grief at the loss of René, too early, nor without knowing that this very thing, this support, is something he was able to give many more than me. He was excited about my work, or seemed so. He trusted me to translate a paper of his for a presentation at the MLA, although I was much more of a beginner than not. And he praised the results. He read my first book of poetry, published shortly after I received my degree from the University of Minnesota, and praised it as well, likely beyond what it deserved, perhaps because he knew that it was an opening to more, a synthesis of hard knocks and whatever gift of language lived within me. He wrote me letters of recommendation that were more complete and specific than I have ever seen anyone else do, even for their best students. I tend to write letters like these, I realize.
I left Minnesota, but every few years or so got in touch with René, and never worried that he would not remember me or would not welcome me. I occasionally visited, breathing in deeply the air of his office, and knowing it was food for someone hungry to go home to language and literature in this disciplined and joyful way. I brought him my next book of poetry. He saw the growth. He never failed me, ever. Neither in being a wonder to talk with, nor an ally in a profound sense.
I was so happy as he made a family, put on a few pounds. I remember those days when his diet of coffee and (I think I recall) many cigarettes kept him thin. The last time I saw him was before his surgery, and I was so happy to hear from him afterward, and imagine him reading as much and whatever he pleased, and spending time with family and friends.
My memory can locate in those piles of notebooks from René's classes a phrase of his lecture--perhaps his own; perhaps a quote (and if this is a known phrase and you have the source, please inform me!)--that poetry is: words searching for other words; palabras buscando palabras.
This phrase reminds me that René's words seemed always to be searching for other words on this poetic road, and that he searched for the poetry in his students. For many of us, his search was so skillful, so loving and knowledgeable, that it yielded up the poetry in our hearts and minds, in a language we had not known we possessed.
Anya Achtenberg
www.anyaachtenberg.com
