Written in Water: The Collected Prose Poems

by Luis Cernuda, Stephen Kessler (Translator)

While Cernuda’s verse is vivid testimony to various aspects of his biographical itinerary, it is in his prose poems that he traces more explicitly an outline of his life’s journey. Reviewing this work, Octavio Paz “In these memories and landscapes, in these notes toward the history of his sensibility, there is great objectivity; the poet doesn’t set out to fantasize, or to lie to himself or anyone else. He attempts only to illuminate, with an almost impersonal light, something very a few moments in his life. But is it truly ours, this life we live?” Luis Cernuda (1902–1963) was one of the leading poets of Spain’s Generation of 1927, which included Federico García Lorca, Rafael Alberti and Jorge Guillén.

Genres: Poetry

128 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2004

About the author

Luis Cernuda was a Spanish poet and literary critic.

The son of a military man, Cernuda received a strict education as a child, and then studied law at the University of Seville, where he met the poet and literature professor Pedro Salinas. In 1928, after his mother died, Cernuda left his hometown, with which he had all his life an intense love-hate relationship. He briefly moved to Madrid, where he quickly became part of the literary scene. However, his detached, timid and morose character, his search of perfection frequently made him lose friendships and popularity.

His mentor and former professor Salinas arranged for him to take a lectureship for a year at the University of Toulouse. From June 1929 until 1937 Cernuda lived in Madrid and participated actively in the literary and cultural scene of the Spanish capital. Cernuda collaborated with many organisations working to support a more liberal and tolerant Spain. He participated in the Second Congress of Anti-Fascist Intellectuals in Valencia.

During the Spanish Civil War a friend secured him a position as teacher in Cranleigh School, where he taught Spanish Language and literature. After WWII another friend got him a lectureship in Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA, where he would spend some years. Later on, moved by his sentimental relationships, he would move to Mexico, where he died.

The central concerns of this poet are evident in the title of his life's major opus: La realidad y el deseo ("Reality and Desire"). He published his first collection of verse, Perfil del aire ("Air's profile"), in 1927. Several books followed, and he collected new and already published poetry under this title in 1936. Subsequent editions would include new poetry as new books inside La realidad y el deseo. Expanded on almost until his death in 1963, in this work the poet explores desire, love, subject, object, history and sexuality in poems which draw influences from romanticism, classicism, and the surrealist avant-garde. Besides verse, he also published a collection of reminiscent prose poems, 'Ocnos', about his childhood in Seville.

Cernuda is known as a member of the Generation of '27, a group of Spanish poets and artists including Federico García Lorca. He broke new ground with Los Placeres Prohibidos ("Forbidden Pleasures"), an avant-garde work in which the poet used surrealism to explore his sexuality. During his British period he became deeply familiar with English poetry, which he would admire for its containment and lack of superfluous artifice and paraphernalia. He would also translate several poems and plays into Spanish. He would comment that translating Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida made him intensely happy.

Deeply influenced by André Gide, Cernuda embraced his homosexuality at an early age and made homosexual desire and love the core of his poetry. Or, at least, unlike other gay poets at the time, in his poetry he was never ambiguous about the fact that the objects of his desire and love were men. One of the most influential poets in contemporary Spanish poetry, he is definitely a crucial ground-breaking figure for homosexual writing in Spanish.

During the Spanish Civil War, deeply moved by the assassination of Federico Garcia Lorca, Cernuda fled to England, where he began an exile that later took him to France, Scotland, Massachusetts (Mount Holyoke College), California and finally settling in Mexico; he never returned to Spain. He never married and had no children.

His major English language critics include Derek Harris and Phillip Silver.

Reviews

[Sean Dunnsue · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found Cernuda’s ability to weave crystallized fragments into a loose narrative fascinating. He has a wonderful eye for the world around him, which he uses to generate incredible amounts of meaning from relatively straightforward concepts. The prose itself is beautiful although challenging at times (the punctuation often makes it read as somewhat disjointed). I’m definitely pretty inspired and now curious to read works by other influential Spanish poets in the future.

[Nancy]

I had never read Cernuda's work before and this book was a revelation. I flagged so many beautiful passages that I wanted to copy down, and I did copy them down once I finished the book.

"But a book should be a living thing, and its reading a marvelous revelation after which the reader is not the same, or is more than what he was before."
~ Luis Cernuda

[Gerry LaFemina · Rating 2 out of 5]

These prose poems all seem a bit bogged down, as if the poetry part had its feet lodged firmly in a swamp. I'm not sure if its the translations or a problem of the Spanish originals (this is not a bilingual edition), but few of the pieces have an attentive ear to the language or the rhythm of the sentence, and I found myself being drawn to other books in the to-read stack often.

[Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought parts of this was brilliant but I stopped reading half way b/c it was so heavy---I felt like I was drowning in image which I know, isn't a bad way to die;)

I will attempt again in a few weeks.

[Mills College Library]

861.62 C415w 2004