Poesía escogida

by Roque Dalton

poetry, El Salvador, tr Richard Schaaf

Genres: Poetry

538 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1983

About the author

Roque Dalton was born on May 14, 1935, in San Salvador, El Salvador. His father was one of the members of the outlaw Dalton brothers and his mother was a registered nurse whose salary supported the family. After a year at the University of Santiago, Chile, Roque Dalton attended the University of San Salvador in 1956, where he helped found the University Literary Circle just before the Salvadoran military set fire to the building. The following year he joined the Communist Party; he was arrested in 1959 and 1960 for inciting students and peasants to revolt against the landowners. Dalton was sentenced to be executed, but his life was saved the day before his sentence was to be carried out, when the dictatorship of Colonel José María Lemus was overthrown. He spent 1961 in Mexican exile, writing many of the poems that were published in La Ventana en el rostro ("The Window in My Face," 1961) and El turno del ofendido ("The Injured Party's Turn," 1962). He dedicated the latter book to the Salvadoran police chief who had filed the charges against him.

From Mexico, Dalton naturally gravitated to Cuba, where he was well received by the Cuban and Latin American exiled writers who gathered in the Casa de las Américas. From that point on, starting with La Ventana en el rostro and El Mar ("The Sea") in 1962, almost all of his poetic work was published in Cuba. In the summer of 1965, he returned to El Salvador to continue his political work. Two months after his arrival, he was arrested, tortured, and again sentenced to execution. However, he managed to escape death once more when an earthquake shattered the outer wall of his cell, enabling him to dig his way out through the rubble.

He returned to Cuba and a few months later the Communist Party sent him to Prague as a correspondent for The International Review: Problems of Peace and Socialism. His book Taberna y ostros lugares ("Tavern and Other Places"), reflecting his long stay in Prague, won the Casa de las Américas poetry prize in 1969 and established Roque Dalton, at the age of thirty-four, as one of the best young poets in Latin America. In 1975, a military faction of the Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP), unjustly accused him of trying to divide their organization and condemned him to death. They executed him on May 10, 1975, four days before his fortieth birthday.

Reviews

[Sofía · Rating 5 out of 5]

Desde que leí algunos poemas sueltos sentí que no estaba leyendo una poesía simple. Roque Dalton tiene la facilidad de encontrar en el lenguaje cotidiano el verso exacto. Y, por supuesto, una gran carga emotiva e ideológica.

[Adrià Ibáñez Pelegrí]

“[…] y vendrán nuevos hombres / pidiendo panoramas. / Preguntarán qué fuimos, / quiénes con llamas puras les antecedieron, / a quiénes maldecir con el recuerdo. / Bien. / Eso hacemos: / custodiamos para ellos el tiempo que nos toca”

‘¿Por qué escribimos?’ (San Salvador, 1961)

[Juan Medina · Rating 4 out of 5]

"No me ames
para agotar tu destino."
RD

[Lydia Arana · Rating 2 out of 5]

319 páginas, entre las cuales se encuentra una crítica rotunda hacia el cristianismo y el gobierno de su país, con frases que te hacen reflexionar y te abren ventanas a una realidad que conocías pero negabas ver.
Sin embargo, estos versos extraordinarios son una minoría en comparación con el desolado lenguaje del autor, que une palabras sin transmitir nada.
De este libro me quedo con 5 poemas que dinamitan el corazón, el resto corren como el agua que hace ruido pero no dice nada.

[Arturo Real · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un bello encuentro, trágico y conmovedor a partes iguales, lleno de luz y a la vez de tristeza y frustración. Leerlo me ha llevado a pensar mucho en Víctor Jara en algún fragmento, en otros en Miguel Hernández; pero en general en la tristeza que a veces el "brillante" siglo XX oculta bajo regímenes explotadores y oligarquías agarradas a su poder y su corrupción de forma inclemente.

[k-os]

Roque writes, "I believe the world is beautiful, / that poetry is, like bread, for everyone." Same. Powerful collection by a truly revolutionary poet. Or really a poet-revolutionary, since "Now tenderness isn't enough. / I've had a taste of gunpowder."

[David Coloma García · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aborda una gran variedad de temas y estilos poéticos.
Un denso libro para leer con calma y descubrir todo lo que esconde.

[Irazú · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un poeta de verdad es revolucionario, y los revolucionarios tienden a ser poetas

[Jorge · Rating 4 out of 5]

No logro adivinar por qué este poeta salvadoreño no está, hasta donde yo sé, en los planes de estudio de Filología Hispánica. Testigo de una época en la que Hispanoamérica entre dictaduras militares auspiciadas por EE.UU. y regímenes comunistas satélites de la URSS, Dalton tomó parte de esta última línea ideológica, lo que le llevó a morir a manos de sus compañeros de causa. Quizá como poeta no esté a la altura de Vallejo, Borges o Neruda, pero merece la pena leer con detenimiento los versos escritos por este autor.

[alexcuetodo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good example of Spanish poetry with a revolutionary style/

[Antonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

el amor es mi otra patria
la primera
no la de que me ufano
la que sufro