Invisible Reality

by Juan Ramón Jiménez

The great Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1956, was a mystic as will as a poet, and the deep spirituality which infuses so much of his writing makes itself felt with special fervor throughout this remarkable new collection of poems. Composed by Jiménez between the years 1917 to 1920, the works in this grouping vanished mysteriously, only to be rediscovered a half-century later among the author’s private papers. Published in Spain for the first time in 1983, they appear now at last in a bilingual edition, the English lovingly rendered by the scholar and poet Antonio T. de Nicolás, and introduced by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Louis Simpson. This is a book of verse for the poet in all of us—it sings of the invisible realities which we carry in our hearts and which carry us through a life filled with symbols, toil and beauty. Juan Ramón Jiménez, an early twentieth century pioneer in the use of free verse and author of over 70 books has been hailed by The New Republic as “not only the dean of Hispanic poets, but the pioneer and the source of all those who wrote in the Spanish tongue after him.” Antonio T. de Nicolás is widely known for his translation of the Jiménez classic, Platero and I , which will also be republished through iUniverse.com.

Genres: Poetry, Nobel Prize, Spanish Literature

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Platero y Yo (1914) ranks as most famous work of Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez, who introduced modernism to Spanish verse and won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1956.

He won this prize "for his lyrical poetry, which in Spanish language constitutes an example of high spirit and artistical purity."

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Ram...

Reviews

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of poems written between 1917 and 1920 but which “mysteriously vanished” and remained unknown to the world before resurfacing 50 years later. The poems limn the subtlest reaches of earth- and body-centered mystical experience, on par with the accomplishments of Emily Dickinson in that regard; but instead of adding those extra layers of linguistic entanglements so beloved by Emily (and by myself in Emily), Jimenez writes in a very simple and direct language, though it still takes a highly sensitized reader (who has, perhaps, had similar experiences) to tune into the experiences rendered:

Outside

The rigid air,
a bell in the cold,
eyes on the frost!

Inside, before,
home was a body,
and the body soul.

The white soil,
the silence, the smoke
lifting our home!

Now, as I walk,
the soul is body,
home is the soul.

This for me can not be improved upon in its expression of that cozy & delicious feeling one gets when outside in the cold knowing a warm home awaits, which is a spiritual feeling in itself as far as I’m concerned, but it also resonates on other levels of the purely spiritual that have little to do with actual houses or actual frost, as it suggests that "home", that place of spiritual/metaphysical rest and quietude and bliss, that is almost always out of reach but that is ever right there, waiting for us to recognize it.

He also excels at poems of transient indefinable joy:

Things give birth. I
love them, they,
in a rainbow of grace,
give me children, give me children.

If you’ve ever had the chance experience of seeing the earth as endless plenitude and fructiferous miracle, which can happen in an orchard or on a city street, then you should appreciate this seemingly off-hand jotting.

For being a Nobel Laureate, Jimenez’ entry in Wikipedia is fairly scant. For instance, the “mystery” of this manuscript isn’t even mentioned, though there is a tantalizing mention of another, erotic, manuscript that was also “lost” for years.

When he was around 20 he apparently had a breakdown of some sort and was sent to a sanatorium run by nuns and novitiates. A few years later he wrote a series of poems of s highly erotic nature depicting sexual romps with those very novitiates, though it is unclear whether they are literally erotic or depictions of spiritual experience in erotic terms. I’m led to think they are literally erotic as he later wrote undoubtedly explicit sexual verse inspired by relations with his wife.

This collection includes some poems that adroitly straddle the two realms, sexual and spiritual, and show that they aren’t necessarily antithetical.

I am the center of my immense world,
you, the center of yours.

What an immense penetration
of so many double and different things,
until we both meet, as one, out of the two in between!

Sr. Juan Ramon Jimenez, I do want to know more about you! You obviously had a very interesting internal life.

One word of warning, though; this book is pretty cheesy looking, the title and the color-photocopy-quality cover design giving it the appearance of a vaguely saccharine New Age vanity project.

[Amolpid · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tremendo pedrolo, chavales, si os queréis aburrir, adelante. Si os dice algo, os envidio. A mí no me dijo nada.

[J. S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro de poemas bueno. Fue inédito en su momento. Poemitas simples que invitan a esa realidad nouménica que se escancia entre la cotidianidad. No estoy acostumbrado a este Juan Ramón Jiménez, pero el poema corto, de corte purista, lo alcanza con maestría.

[Mark Folse · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those of us grounded in the concrete in poetry, who sometimes miss the materialization of spirits in the dust devils chasing across the playground, who fail to marvel at the miracle that stars penetrate the starlight of the most blinding of cities, let yourself escape into the pure, spiritual celebration of this book.