Panero revives with Bunbury

Leopoldo María Panero did not have to die to be recognized. This month marks ten years since the death of an author who is difficult to label. A great man of 20th century literature, despite the fact that his madness and his tormented life, from psychiatric hospital to psychiatric hospital, ended up devouring the Leonese poet. The singer Enrique Bunbury, admirer of the cursed author par excellence, to whom he dedicated an album twenty years ago, now rescues the creator of lair of an animal . On May 17, the reissue of that album will be released, now in digital and double vinyl format, along with the documentary A day with Panero directed in 2005 by Jacobo Beut.

In 2004 four ‘kamikazes’ teamed up to record an album in tribute to Panero: Bunbury, Carlos Ann, the journalist Bruno Galindo and José María Ponce, considered the ‘father’ of porn cinema in Spain and who died a few days ago. This reissue adds four songs that did not appear on the original album. Is about Poetry destroys man (Bunbury), The treasure of Sierra Madre (Bruno Galindo), The noi del sucre (Carlos Ann) and The man who just eat carrots (José María Ponce).

They set out to update the album, but with the condition of maintaining the Panerian sound and essence. When they were forging the original project, Bunbury and Carlos Ann visited Panero at the center where he was hospitalized during his last years in Las Palmas. They also ‘removed’ him from the psychiatric hospital again for the presentation and only concert of the album, in Barcelona. Precisely, Beut’s documentary captures the experiences of that emotional night. Panero listened to the concert from a privileged place, on a sofa placed on the stage. There he recited some of his poems as if he were a rock star, although his demands were modest. He only asked for tobacco and Coca Cola at his discretion.

The album was published in 2004 and contained 30 adaptations of poems with music by Carlos Ann and Bunbury. It was an album released by Moviedisco Records and in the repertoire were the verses of latheist nun, Heroin, The end, Peter Punk, A Vampire’s Lament, Diagonal reading either I celebrate myself and I hate myself.

The singer from Zaragoza has shared on his social networks that Panero’s poem will soon be released on Spotify Poetry destroys man. A short and striking composition that says verbatim: “Poetry destroys man/while monkeys jump from branch to branch/searching in vain for themselves/in the sacrilegious forest of life/words destroy man/and women!” They devour skulls with such hunger for life!/Only the bird is beautiful when it dies/destroyed by poetry.

An immortal author

Panero has turned out to be an inexhaustible author. Last year, journalist J. Benito Fernández published the biography The outline of the abyss, after updating, expanding and correcting the first installment, published 25 years earlier. The journalist decided to close a biography that he had left hanging when the poet was 50 years old. In the new edition, he recounts the last years of the author of This is how Carnaby Street was foundeduntil the bizarre burial of his ashes, five years after his death.

Three years ago the Ministry of Culture acquired the collections of the Leonese poet. About 700 handwritten and typewritten sheets, containing poems, essays, letters and stories. A small ‘jewel’ delivered to the National Library of Spain, which could include some unpublished text by the ‘damned’ poet. The institution in charge of the deposit of the bibliographic and documentary heritage of Spain, located on Madrid’s Paseo de Recoletos, hardly had manuscripts or original texts by this author belonging to the Novísimos group, and no original copies have been found in other Spanish libraries.

Since the death of the author of fear theoryeither Several unpublished texts have appeared. A few months after his death, in 2014, another original was published, sick rose, edited by Huerga & Fierro. The writer seems unfathomable. «I am bisexual and sadomasochistic. “Sadistic with women and ‘masoca’ with men, although also sadistic with some guys, it depends on how handsome they are,” said Panero, who hated his father as a person and admired him as a writer.

Enrique González Duro, considered the ‘father’ of modern psychiatry in Spain, met and treated Leopoldo María Panero, about whom he published a biography in 2019. Panero “was against psychiatry.” He gave her his collection of poems Narcissus in the last chord of the flutes with a very revealing dedication: “With incurable affection.”