Looking for Trouble

by Roque Dalton

Roque Dalton is one of the best-known and loved poets of 20th century Latin America. An extraordinary poet of rebellion and humor, fierce and painful tenderness, his work is still read alongside guerrilla poets like Otto Ren Castillo, Javier Heraud, Cardenal, and Daisy Zamora. Dalton studied law in Chile and then at the University of San Salvador, where he helped found the Committed Generation of Poets. He was accused of being a CIA spy and murdered four days before his 40th birthday. Translated from Spanish by John Green and Michal Boncza.

Genres: Poetry

139 pages, Paperback

Published September 27, 2016

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

[Victor · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s no poet quite like Roque Dalton.

Recommend two particularly sardonic poems in this collection - ‘A Parable Based on Revisionist Vulcanology’, and ‘Catholics and Communists in Latin America: Some Aspects of the Problem’.

[ElenaSquareEyes · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of poems from Roque Dalton, a Salvadoran poet and revolutionary.

The thing I really liked about this collection of poetry was it had Dalton’s original work in Spanish side by side the English translation. It’s a great way to see the words that would’ve rhymed in Spanish and it’s nice that the original text isn’t forgotten. Also at the start of the collection there was a short biography of Dalton which was interesting and helped me understand where his poetry was coming from.

Each poem was very short, often no more than a page and many were only ten lines or so. This made them punchy, getting across the ideas and emotions in a concise way. His poems were often sarcastic which was an interesting yet strangely fun way for poems about love, death, revolution and politics to be. His sarcasm definitely shone through in his more political poems and I love sarcasm in writing.

My favourite poems in the collection were the political ones like “Poem XVI” and “My Military III the P.S. (Prodigal Sons)” Thanks to the biography at the start of the book you have a rough idea of the political turmoil going on in El Salvador at the time of his writings, with the ideas of a revolution being rife in the country after the Cuban Revolution in the 1950’s. One of the poems I liked a lot because it made me think and put a wry smile on my face was “Miscellaneous” – this one is about socialism and imperialism and how the two could attempt to shape El Salvador. My other favourite was “On Headaches” which is about the pain different movements cause while Communism is like “an aspirin the size of the sun.” It was an amusing look at different political ideologies and a great insight into the mind of a revolutionary.

It’s been a long time since I’ve read poetry for fun – I think having to learn everything about Seamus Heaney and Caroline Duffy’s work for my GCSE’s kind of put me off poetry as a whole genre for a while – but I found Dalton’s work really accessible. It’s a quick read and reading his poetry was an interesting snapshot into a country’s history. I think I might look for more poetry collections as I continue to attempt to read the world!