Decals: Complete Early Poems

by Oliverio Girondo, Rachel Galvin (Translator), Harris Feinsod (Translator)

An important influence on Jorge Luis Borges and others, Oliverio Girondo was at the center of Argentine poetry in the twentieth century. His first two books demonstrate his cosmopolitan wanderlust and avant-garde aesthetics. Twenty Poems to Be Read on the Streetcar crisscrosses Europe and the Americas on trams, express trains, and ocean liners. Decalcomania takes the reader on a tour of Spain that cleverly deflates its romantic appeal, but reinvigorates it with a glamour found in Girondo’s intensive wordplay and idiosyncratic flare for metaphor.

Genres: Poetry, Latin American

192 pages, Paperback

Published December 11, 2018

About the author

Born of a wealthy family in Buenos Aires in 1891, Oliverio Girondo spent his early years in Argentina and Europe, traveling to the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900, when he was only nine, and where he later claimed to have seen Oscar Wilde stalking the streets with sunflower in hand. After spending some time at the Lycée Louis le Grand in Paris and Epsom School in England, he made an agreement with his family to attend law school in Buenos Aires if they would send him each year to Europe for the holidays. For the next several years, Girondo explored the continent, even traveling to find the source of the Nile.

Meanwhile, back at home he had begun writing avant-garde plays, which caused a stir in the theater world of Argentina. In 1922 he published, in France, his first volume and verse, 20 Poems to Be Read in a Trolley Car, which shows the influence of Guillaume Apollinaire and the Parisian scene. Only in 1925, with the second printing of this book, did Girondo receive attention in Argentina. By this time, the ultraists, lead by Jorge Luis Borges, had become a major force the scene, and Girondo continued his own humorous exploration of the aesthetic in his second volume, Decals. In the same period he became involved with the avant-garde journal Martin Fierro, which brought together younger poets such as Girondo and Borges with more established figures such as Ricardo Güiraldes and Macedonion Fernández.

After a five year period of traveling again, Girondo returned to Buenos Aires, publishing two of his major works, Scarecrow (1932) and Intermoonlude (1937). A new book, Our Countryside, appeared in 1946, the same year he married the poet Nora Lange. In this new work he moved away from the ultraist ideas, playing with elaborate metaphoric language. As Borges moved toward his more fantasist works, and a new generation of poets arose, Girondo was increasingly described as a humorous or even frivolous poet, but his 1956 work, Moremarrow stood as a darker summation of his career, a work that bears comparison with the great Chilean writer Vicente Huidobro's Altazor. Many readers, however, feel that Girondo went further in his linguistic explorations. During that same period Girondo revived the journal Contemporánea.

In 1964 Girondo was hit by a car, and for the several years suffered terrible pain before dying of those injuries in 1967. His last works were gathered by the surrealist poet Enrique Molina.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

A knockout selection of Argentine poems with a shedload of memorable lines. i.e.

“My rubber-soled happiness makes me bounce over the sand.”
“When I arrive at the corner, my shadow separates from me and suddenly throws itself under the wheels of a streetcar.”
“Females with fidgety haunches, a little foam in their armpits and over-oiled eyes.”
“The casino sips the last drops of dusk.”

Translation impeccable.

[jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

decals: complete early poems comprises oliverio girondo's first two poetry collections: twenty poems to be read on the streetcar (veinte poemas para ser leidos en el tranvia) (1922) & decals (calcomanías) (1925). the argentine poet was a contemporary of borges, garcía lorca, and macedonio fernández, among others... and married fellow argentine author norah lange in 1943. the poems in decals, though nearly a century old by now, still resonate with idiosyncratic observation, clever metaphors, and striking imagery.

the translators' introduction offers a background on girondo's life, as well as a much-needed primer on girondo's poetry and the task of rendering it into english. also included in decals are some of the poet's original watercolor illustrations.

nocturne

cool glass, when leaning forehead against window. late-night lights go out, leaving us even lonelier. spider webs woven by wires over rooftops. for no reason, the hollow trot of passing nags makes us emotional.
what does the howl of these cats in heat call to mind, and what can the scraps of paper be plotting as they slither onto empty patios?
the time of night when old furniture seizes the chance to shed its lies, when pipes make strangulated cries, as though suffocating inside the walls.
now and then we think, when flipping the electric light switch, of the fright the shadows must feel, and we'd like to warn them so they have time to curl up in the corners. and now and then there is something sinister about the telephone-pole crosses over the rooftops, and one wants to slink along the walls like a cat or a thief.
nights when we wish for a hand to caress our lower back, when we suddenly realize that no tenderness compares to stroking something as it sleeps.

silence!—voiceless cricket that hops in our ear. leaky faucet song!—the only cricket that suits the city.

(buenos aries, november 1921)

*translated from the spanish by rachel galvin and harris feinsod

[Aldo Diosdado · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sin duda este segundo libro de Oliverio me parece más maduro. La cadencia de los textos me remiten a crónicas de sus viajes por España (la mayoría), así como sus dedicatorias a españoles y españolas hace notorio su homenaje al país vasco. Siguen las imágenes tétricas, al estilo de Poe (incluso lo menciona en el último poema). Las descripciones de los lugares, las ciudades, los momentos son muy ricas en palabras e imágenes. Me parece relevante que toca el tema del comercio ilegal, y me extraña mucho que tenga un pasaje pederasta. Me gusta la relación de la muerte con el sueño, una imagen infinitamente poética. Mis favoritos: Calle de las sierpes; Tánger; Siesta; y Juerga.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Glad to have read this book even though I'm no expert on poetry. Loved several of these poems; vivid imagery. Also really liked the introduction by the two translators who worked on this volume. Their description of the collaborative process they used was fascinating.

[Valen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Se nota que no me gusto porque lo agarré para hacer la reseña y lo único que marqué fue esto:

“ previa autorización de las “mamás”,
las “niñas” van a sentarse
sobre las rodillas de los hombres,
para cambiar un beso por un duro,
mientras el “cantaor” ,
muslos de rana,
embutidos en fundas de paraguas,
tartamudea una copla
que lo desinfla nueve kilos”

Al lado saque una flecha que dice: WTF

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I think about where I will store the kiosks, streetlamps, passerby that winter through my pupils. I feel so full I fear I’ll burst . . . I might need to drop some ballast on the walkway.

When I arrive at a corner, my shadow separates from me and suddenly throws itself under the wheels of a streetcar.”

[Elliot · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Breton Landscape' is amazing, and there's some great stuff in the collection, but a bit too repetitive of a collection.