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Selected Poems of Miguel Hernández
Miguel Hernández is, along with Antonio Machado, Juan Ramón Jiménez, and Federico García Lorca, one of the greatest Spanish poets of the twentieth century. This volume spans the whole of Hernández’s brief writing life, and includes his most celebrated poems, from the early lyrics written in traditional forms, such as the moving elegy Hernández wrote to his friend and mentor Ramon Sijé (one of the most famous elegies ever written in the Spanish language), to the spiritual eroticism of his love poems, and the heart-wrenching, luminous lines written in the trenches of war. Also included in this edition are tributes to Hernández by Federico García Lorca, Pablo Neruda (interviewed by Robert Bly), Rafael Alberti, and Vicente Aleixandre. Pastoral nature, love, and war are recurring themes in Hernández’s poetry, his words a dazzling reminder that force can never defeat spirit, that courage is its own reward.
128 pages, Paperback
Published April 2, 2013
2 people are currently reading
137 people want to read
About the author
Miguel Hernández
260 books182 followersMiguel Hernández, born in Orihuela (Alicante Province), was a leading 20th century Spanish poet and playwright.
Hernández was born to a poor family and received little formal education; he published his first book of poetry at 23, and gained considerable fame before his death. He spent his childhood as a goatherd and farmhand, and was, for the most part, self-taught, although he did receive basic education from state schools and the Jesuits. He was introduced to literature by friend Ramon Sijé. As a youth, Hernández greatly admired the Spanish Baroque lyric poet Luis de Góngora, who was an influence in his early works. Like many Spanish poets of his era, he was deeply influenced by European vanguard movements, notably by Surrealism. Though Hernández employed novel images and concepts in his verses, he never abandoned classical, popular rhythms and rhymes. Two of his most famous poems were inspired by the death of his friends Ignacio Sánchez Mejías and Ramon Sijé.
Hernández campaigned for the Republic during the Spanish Civil War, writing poetry and addressing troops deployed to the front.
During the Civil War, on the ninth of March in 1937, he married Josefina Manresa Marhuenda, whom he had met in 1933 in Orihuela. His wife inspired him to write most of his romantic work. Their first son, Manuel Ramon, was born on 19 December 1937 but died in infancy on 19 October 1938. Months later came their second son, Manuel Miguel (b. 4 January 1939, d. 1984).
Unlike others, he could not escape Spain after the Republican surrender and was arrested multiple times after the war for his anti-fascist sympathies, and was eventually sentenced to death. His death sentence, however, was commuted to a prison term of 30 years, leading to incarceration in multiple jails under extraordinarily harsh conditions until he eventually succumbed to tuberculosis in 1942. Just before his death, Hernández scrawled his last verse on the wall of the hospital: Goodbye, brothers, comrades, friends: let me take my leave of the sun and the fields. Some of his verses were kept by his jailers.
While in prison, Hernández produced an extraordinary amount of poetry, much of it in the form of simple songs, which the poet collected in his papers and sent to his wife and others. These poems are now known as his Cancionero y romancero de ausencia (Songs and Ballads of Absence). In these works, the poet writes not only of the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War and his own incarceration, but also of the death of an infant son and the struggle of his wife and another son to survive in poverty. The intensity and simplicity of the poems, combined with the extraordinary situation of the poet, give them remarkable power.
Perhaps Hernández's best known poem is "Nanas de cebolla" ("Onion Lullaby"), a reply in verse to a letter from his wife in which she informed him that she was surviving on bread and onions. In the poem, the poet envisions his son breastfeeding on his mother's onion blood (sangre de cebolla), and uses the child's laughter as a counterpoint to the mother's desperation. In this as in other poems, the poet turns his wife's body into a mythic symbol of desperation and hope, of regenerative power desperately needed in a broken Spain.
Hernández was born to a poor family and received little formal education; he published his first book of poetry at 23, and gained considerable fame before his death. He spent his childhood as a goatherd and farmhand, and was, for the most part, self-taught, although he did receive basic education from state schools and the Jesuits. He was introduced to literature by friend Ramon Sijé. As a youth, Hernández greatly admired the Spanish Baroque lyric poet Luis de Góngora, who was an influence in his early works. Like many Spanish poets of his era, he was deeply influenced by European vanguard movements, notably by Surrealism. Though Hernández employed novel images and concepts in his verses, he never abandoned classical, popular rhythms and rhymes. Two of his most famous poems were inspired by the death of his friends Ignacio Sánchez Mejías and Ramon Sijé.
Hernández campaigned for the Republic during the Spanish Civil War, writing poetry and addressing troops deployed to the front.
During the Civil War, on the ninth of March in 1937, he married Josefina Manresa Marhuenda, whom he had met in 1933 in Orihuela. His wife inspired him to write most of his romantic work. Their first son, Manuel Ramon, was born on 19 December 1937 but died in infancy on 19 October 1938. Months later came their second son, Manuel Miguel (b. 4 January 1939, d. 1984).
Unlike others, he could not escape Spain after the Republican surrender and was arrested multiple times after the war for his anti-fascist sympathies, and was eventually sentenced to death. His death sentence, however, was commuted to a prison term of 30 years, leading to incarceration in multiple jails under extraordinarily harsh conditions until he eventually succumbed to tuberculosis in 1942. Just before his death, Hernández scrawled his last verse on the wall of the hospital: Goodbye, brothers, comrades, friends: let me take my leave of the sun and the fields. Some of his verses were kept by his jailers.
While in prison, Hernández produced an extraordinary amount of poetry, much of it in the form of simple songs, which the poet collected in his papers and sent to his wife and others. These poems are now known as his Cancionero y romancero de ausencia (Songs and Ballads of Absence). In these works, the poet writes not only of the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War and his own incarceration, but also of the death of an infant son and the struggle of his wife and another son to survive in poverty. The intensity and simplicity of the poems, combined with the extraordinary situation of the poet, give them remarkable power.
Perhaps Hernández's best known poem is "Nanas de cebolla" ("Onion Lullaby"), a reply in verse to a letter from his wife in which she informed him that she was surviving on bread and onions. In the poem, the poet envisions his son breastfeeding on his mother's onion blood (sangre de cebolla), and uses the child's laughter as a counterpoint to the mother's desperation. In this as in other poems, the poet turns his wife's body into a mythic symbol of desperation and hope, of regenerative power desperately needed in a broken Spain.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 15, 2024
‘Mute and overflowing, milk
illuminates your bones.’
Overall, not for me (even though I wanted to like this more than I did), I don’t think. Obviously very well-written, but I just didn’t feel anything much/enough about it. Perhaps just a case of wrong time, wrong poem/poet. (It also could be that I don't like these translations (will have to read other translations of Hernández's work to know for sure) But I do like this bit below :
‘Time is blood. Time pumps through my veins.
And here with the clock and dawn, I am more than wounded,
and I hear blood collisions of every kind.
Blood, where death itself could scarcely bathe:
Excited brilliance that has not grown pale
because my eyes, for a thousand years, have sheltered it.’
And I like this bit below too, from the last few pages of the book (there are a few more pieces written by other writers — Federico García Lorca and Pablo Neruda, etc. but I like this one best), written by Octavio Paz, and translated by Eliot Weinberger. Interesting to me hugely because they are writers I am interested in/curious about, and want to read (their work/writing).
‘Not a poplar, not an olive, not an oak, not an apple, not an orange, but all the trees together, blending their sap and smells and leaves into that tree of flesh and voice. It is impossible to remember him with words; more than in memory, “he is written in the flavour of time.”
And now I don’t want to remember more, now that I remember so much. I know that we were friends; that we walked together in Valencia and in the ruins of Madrid, at night, by the sea, or in intricate alleyways; I know that he liked to climb trees and eat watermelons in the taverns where soldiers went; I know that later I saw him in Paris and his presence was like a flash of sun, of bread, of the black city. I remember everything, but I don’t want to remember…
I don’t want to remember you, Miguel, great friend of a few miraculous days, days out of time, days of passion in which, discovering you, I discovered Spain, I discovered a part of myself, a rough and tender root, that made me larger and more ancient. Let others remember you. Let me forget you, because the oblivion of the pure and the true, the oblivion of the best, is what gives us the strength to keep living in this rotting and malodorous world of appointments and pieties, salutations and ceremonies.’
November 17, 2021
18: Blood blooms, spreads
its wide foliage in my chest,
its brimming poplar grows wild
and falls violently undone into several fierce rivers.
40: Although my loving body
is under earth now,
write to me on earth
so I can write to you.
71: I am a kiss, a shadow with a shadow.
A kiss, pain in pain.
For having fallen in love,
heartless heart,
with things, with creation's
shadowless breath.
its wide foliage in my chest,
its brimming poplar grows wild
and falls violently undone into several fierce rivers.
40: Although my loving body
is under earth now,
write to me on earth
so I can write to you.
71: I am a kiss, a shadow with a shadow.
A kiss, pain in pain.
For having fallen in love,
heartless heart,
with things, with creation's
shadowless breath.
January 5, 2023
à propos de son fils qui est mort à l âge de 10 mois:
Ma maison avec toi
était une chambre déjà voutée
[...]
Ma maison devient une fosse
[...]
Ma maison est une cité
avec une porte sur l'aube,
une autre grande sur le soir,
et sur la nuit immense une autre.
Ma maison est comme un cercueil
qui tambourine sous la pluie.
Elle fait peur aux hirondelles
quand elle est fâchée elles fuient.
Dans ma maison il manque un corps.
Chez nous il en est deux de trop.
Ma maison avec toi
était une chambre déjà voutée
[...]
Ma maison devient une fosse
[...]
Ma maison est une cité
avec une porte sur l'aube,
une autre grande sur le soir,
et sur la nuit immense une autre.
Ma maison est comme un cercueil
qui tambourine sous la pluie.
Elle fait peur aux hirondelles
quand elle est fâchée elles fuient.
Dans ma maison il manque un corps.
Chez nous il en est deux de trop.
January 15, 2025
"No hay extensión más grande que mi herida,
lloro mi desventura y sus conjuntos
y siento más tu muerte que mi vida"
(no es esta la edición específica que leí)
Tiene poemas con cosas bonitas e interesantes pero no me gustó tanto.
lloro mi desventura y sus conjuntos
y siento más tu muerte que mi vida"
(no es esta la edición específica que leí)
Tiene poemas con cosas bonitas e interesantes pero no me gustó tanto.
December 5, 2025
Good, but very sad… not surprising, considering the poet’s life.
April 16, 2013
A beautiful slim collection of poetry, that encompasses, I think, everything that poetry should be about: courage and heart and bravery and feeling and anger and fear and regret and love and lust and sadness and death. Maybe not everything but a lot of things. Hernandez was born a shepherd and never got a tradition or good schooling, so it makes sense that his poems are direct and emotive and his passion is felt by the reader. No one would doubt him of his sincerity. But he is not an artist proud of his species or time, he laments the weakness and greed and bloodlust that humans unfortunately contain in abundance, and would have been seen in Spain in his lifetime at such a high frequency. At the same time he refuses to lie down, and is affirmed in his belief in art and love and beauty and right and nature. Everything around him might suggest the opposite, and many of the poems are very bleak, but he continues to write how he is and what he loves.
I won't go into too much about rhythm or scansion or any of that because its not my ground to hold, nor will I try to evaluate the translation and its ability to bring over from the Spanish the poetics of the original. But there are metaphors that flow through his work that transform from models or power and love to instruments of death, and back again. Hunger and knives and sunshine torment but also create a human being who the reader can picture and aspire to. Though absolutely poetry one sees Hernandez as a soldier walking across no man's land in the face of bullets and unarmed. He doesn't have choice. He just does. And I feel the poems that come out are also inevitable. Built in the crucible of a horrible time, but breathing the same air as the ideal notions of universal justice and truth.
I won't go into too much about rhythm or scansion or any of that because its not my ground to hold, nor will I try to evaluate the translation and its ability to bring over from the Spanish the poetics of the original. But there are metaphors that flow through his work that transform from models or power and love to instruments of death, and back again. Hunger and knives and sunshine torment but also create a human being who the reader can picture and aspire to. Though absolutely poetry one sees Hernandez as a soldier walking across no man's land in the face of bullets and unarmed. He doesn't have choice. He just does. And I feel the poems that come out are also inevitable. Built in the crucible of a horrible time, but breathing the same air as the ideal notions of universal justice and truth.
July 10, 2013
Hernandez's poetry really challenges me..... He has such a reverence for the vibrations of this earth. He attains a unique balance of scornful surrender and a wild, persistent discontent for life. His poetry speaks with a vitality that knows more than this world. However, this vitality is revealed from seeps that nature offers to us.
Calm yet fiery. A duality that is not so common to find in poetry. A duality that is not so common to find in nature.
Calm yet fiery. A duality that is not so common to find in poetry. A duality that is not so common to find in nature.
June 17, 2020
I liked his earlier poems, and the bull poems. not sure if this selection does him no justice, or if all his work is really this depressing. he was in prison, his wife was starving, he lost his child, most of the poems here are around that experience. sometimes it is hard to translate great lyricists. must work on my spanish
January 10, 2024
carta es uno de los poemas más maravillosos que he leído en mi vida.
este poemario tiene una esencia real, pura, profunda y desoladora.
le daría sus 5 estrellas pero algunos no me gustaron casi, pero los demás de verdad que son palabtas
este poemario tiene una esencia real, pura, profunda y desoladora.
le daría sus 5 estrellas pero algunos no me gustaron casi, pero los demás de verdad que son palabtas
January 14, 2024
Amazing collection.
Read
July 8, 2025“When I start to write you
my bones are ready to write you:
I write with the indelible
ink of my love.”
my bones are ready to write you:
I write with the indelible
ink of my love.”
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews