The World's Literature in Europe discussion

After reading the covers and the inside jacket, and browsing the book's pages, I started actually reading with the Appendix: A Chronology of Vallejo's Life and Works from his birth in 1892 through his posthumous publications in 2003. One of his poems, his most famous, according to this book, "Black Stone on a White Stone" from around the time of his death (1938), I found macabre. From this Appendix, I gather that his desire sometimes overrode what was due others, consequently getting him into difficult predicaments. Thus, he knew poverty and riches, prestige and denunciation, as well as political intrigue. So, I'm hoping to find in this tome, The Complete Poetry: A Bilingual Edition, poems whose tenor alludes to various experiences of César Vallejo's life.

Vallejo's famous poem, noted in the prior post, in the original Spanish and in Clayton Eshleman's English translation, is about time and death and is part of the section Poemas Humanos/Human Poems in The Complete Poetry: A Bilingual Edition:

PIEDRA NEGRA SOBRE UNA PIEDRA BLANCA

Me moriré en París con aguacero,
un día del cual tengo ya el recuerdo.
Me moriré en París -y no me corro-
tal vez un jueves, como es hoy, de otoño.

Jueves será, porque hoy, jueves, que proso
estos versos, los húmeros me he puesto
a la mala y, jamás como hoy, me he vuelto,
con todo mi camino, a verme solo.

César Vallejo ha muerto, le pegaban
todos sin que él les haga nada;
le daban duro con un palo y duro

también con una soga; son testigos
los días jueves y los huesos húmeros,
la soledad, la lluvia, los caminos...


BLACK STONE ON A WHITE STONE

I will die in Paris with a downpour,
a day which I can already remember.
I will die in Paris—and I don't budge—
maybe a Thursday, like today, in autumn.

Thursday it will be, because today, Thursday,
as I prose these lines, I have forced on
my humeri and, never like today, have I turned,
with all my journey, to see myself alone.

C[é]sar Vallejo has died, they beat him,
all of them, without him doing anything to them;
they gave it to him hard with a stick and hard

likewise with a rope; witnesses are
the Thursdays and the humerus bones,
the loneliness, the rain, the roads...

http://woodlandpattern.org/poems/cesa...

The beginning through the group of poems called Los Heraldos Negros (1918)/The Black Heralds

The Complete Poetry: A Bilingual Edition is dedicated to "dear friend and early collaborator" José Rubia Barcia. A frontispiece follows of Vallejo, a closeup photograph taken at Versailles, where he is seated outdoors, facing the camera, resting his chin on his hand, his elbow propped on a cane. The Foreword by Mario Vargas Llosa says that Vallejo makes us see our "mortality", and the Introduction by Efraín Kristal looks at Spanish-American poetry relative to Ruben Dario, Pablo Neruda, and Cesar Vallejo and introduces the four poetry collections (Los Heraldos Negros/The Black Heralds & Other Early Poems; Trilce; Poemas Humanos/Human Poems; and Espana, Aparta de Mi Este Caliz/Spain, Take This Cup from Me), which comprise this book. In the first of these collections from 1918, there is the poem 'Sacred Defoliacity', in whose title gives evidence of the creative vocabulary sprinkled throughout, as well as there being some references to religion. In the title poem, for instance, 'The Black Heralds', Wiki attributes its meaning to "the four horsemen of the Apocalypse". Other religious titles are 'Communion', 'Altarpiece', 'God', yet some other references run the gamut from nature to love, from his brother Miguel to paganism. After reading to the beginning of the Trilce collection, I stumbled upon Penn Sound's page for Clayton Eshleman and César Ferreira reading aloud poetry from this book http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/... , an event that enhanced my appreciation of César Vallejo as a poet.

Trilce(1922)

The Trilce collection continues the modernist style of creative spelling, as in Trilce IV, in which five odd words occur in the beginning ten lines--'trifurca', 'embitternessed', 'aljid', 'spiritive', and 'nuthin to ddo about it'. Eshleman the translator elaborates on these and much else in "Notes to the Poems"(pp 621-76). These lines in English and Spanish are from that poem:

IV

Two carts grind against the hammers
until trifurca lachrymals,
when we never did anything to them.
To that other one yes, unloved,
embitternessed under an exposed shelter
by the first one, and over tough aljid
spiritive ordeals.

I stretched out as a third part,
but the evening--nuthin to ddo about it
rings around in my head, furiously
not wanting to dose itself into a mother...


IV (original in spanish)

Rechinan dos carretas, contra los martillos
hasta los lagrimales trifurcas,
cuandonunca las hicimos nada.
A aquella otra sí, desamada,
amargurada bajo túnel campero
por lo uno, y sobre duras ájidas
pruebas espiritivas.

Tendime en són de tercera parte,
mas la tarde —qué la bamos a hhazer—
se anilla en mi cabeza, furiosamente
a no querer dosificarse en madre...

The explanatory "Notes..." provide clues to the vocabulary and make known less obvious points about the poems and the collections in which they are part. The second collection's title "Trilce", for example, has an arguable origin, being a neologism from joined-together words but from which words? The Notes give clues to the possibilities.

Trilce is one of the most difficult reading of his work because Vallejo played with the language a lot, you could found ambiguities and play on words....In short, this work show the richness of the Spanish language and the possibilities of meanings and interpretations.

Ursula wrote: "Trilce is one of the most difficult reading of his work because Vallejo played with the language a lot, you could found ambiguities and play on words....In short, this work show the richness of the..."

True, the uniqueness of Trilce is more than vocabulary; that collection, broadly speaking, shows off Vallejo's passion for and skill with language and his enjoyment in playing with its possibilities. His creativity does not make the poems a breeze to translate. I think that Eshleman the translator worked on Vallejo's poetry for years and that E's English translation reads very well from my point of view as a reader.

Interesting! I'll like to read this edition...I think that the translation of this text could be difficult.... even for people that have Spanish like mother tongue isn't easy to read it...When I read it I have different ways to approach to each poem...really exciting!

Ursula wrote: "...When I read it I have different ways to approach to each poem..."

Now that comment of yours interests me, as your approaches to the poems is something I would like to know more about, Ursula.

Well, depends of the poet I guess, I could search something about him/her (biography, other poems...) and put together in context....(the wine helps too :)

Ursula wrote: "Well, depends of the poet I guess, I could search something about him/her (biography, other poems...) and put together in context....(the wine helps too :)"

OK
(y)

POEMAS HUMANOS (1939)/HUMAN POEMS

Poemas Humanos is said to be so called on account of 'humanos' occurring several times in this group of poems as well as on account of Georgette de Vallejo, his widow, finding among Vallejo's papers notes about his plans for a collection with that name.
These poems have the potential to be pondered, if I may borrow Ursula's phrasing, with wine. They are melodious to read, and are, as Ursula said, display the possibilities of the Spanish language. The bilingual edition is fun, allowing as much comparison between the original Spanish and the translation as a reader wants to do.

I think these are Vallejo's best poems.

Thomas wrote: "I think these are Vallejo's best poems."

I was also going to say that I liked these poems best, too. To me the poems seem biographical and show his social consciousness. In style, Vallejo is given toward expressing opposites, as opposites I suppose encompass all being. And, the last collection in this edition will be poetry about the Spanish Civil War.

España, Aparta De Mí Este Cáliz (1939)/Spain, Take This Cup From Me

Vallejo is said to have been much interested in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), about which this collection is written, and to have favored the continuation of the Second Spanish Republic rather than the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco. Of the many factions in Spain during the conflict, Vallejo sided with the republicans, i.e. loyalists, as the title of poem I, "Himno a los voluntarios de la república"/Hymn to the volunteers for the republic" asserts. Another poem, named for this collection, describes the miserable life to come should Spain fall, ending with a command

...if mother
Spain falls--I mean, it's just a thought--
go out, children of the world, go look for her!...

This poem is a good ending for Espana...

Afterword: A Translation Memoir by Clayton Eshleman and Appendix: A Chronology of Vallejo's Life and Works by Stephen Hart

The Afterword tells how over many years The Complete Poetry: A Bilingual Edition eventually came into being.
The Appendix, a timeline about Vallejo, begins at his birth in 1892 and ends with the publication of Hart's Cesar Vallejo: Autografos olvidados in 2003. Vallejo died in 1938 and Georgette Philippart Vallejo in 1984.