Contraria sunt complementa or Clara Janés’s Orbes del sueño

A Love Story

Abstract

In Orbes del sueño, Clara Janés offers a sample of the “orbs” that dreaming makes accessible, all of which are somewhat associated with areas in physics (hidden variables, quantum indivisibility and entanglements, multiple universes, relativity, wave function, supersymmetry, chaos theories…). In these formulations, the author finds parallels with subjective and internal experiences. Poems articulate encounters between poles that are traditionally opposed and mutually exclusive (subject/object, body/mind, inside/outside…) exemplifying Niels Bohr’s complementarity princile by which it becomes possible to elucidate the perceptual content of the phenomenon. The more the poetic speaker inserts herself into the cosmic web, the more she experiences a love-like relationship with the creativity of the cosmos and apprehends the life that it sustains.