Poems and Prose: A Bilingual Edition - Georg Trakl

Rating: ★★★

15/07/17

Georg Trakl was born in Austria in 1887. He started writing poetry at a very young age, however he later decided to study pharmacy. After that, he enlisted in the army but never stopped writing. During World War I, he worked as a medical official. He witnessed the harrowing consequences of the war (a battle in Grodek inspired one of his last poems). As he found himself surrounded by wounds and death, his depression – which he suffered all his life – worsened and eventually died of an overdose of cocaine at 27.

Many of these events and the emotions they prompted appear in his poetry, which is gracefully tinged with the colors of Expressionism.

Trakl’s poetry abounds with nostalgic reminiscences, the bleak colors of the evening, the reverberation of silence. But above all, with the images of death. A dark imagery which creates a sad and oppressive atmosphere.

His delectable language, which fluctuates between fragility and strength, brims over with allusions to death. It's definitely hard to explain, but despite the beauty of the language, the considerable amount of references to such theme started to get a little tiresome. After reading a bit about his life, I understand. Nonetheless, I felt like I was reading an obituary. A long, bluish lament that after a few pages became somewhat monotonous. It reminded me of my experience while reading Cioran and his overused concept of darkness.

In this sense, I wasn’t able to connect with Trakl’s verse – though I did enjoy his prose, and that explains the 3-star rating:

My levels of enthusiasm varied widely, regardless of my penchant for melancholic poetry (but this was beyond melancholic; I couldn't handle the lack of balance). After a while, the sense of expectancy was gone. I already knew that the next page was going to show me another shade of the recurring theme of this collection. Lethal predictability. 

Luna de Enfrente: Cuaderno San Martín - Jorge Luis Borges

Rating: ★★★★

13/16/16

Moon Across the Way (1925) and San Martín Copybook (1929) are the last two books that complete the poetic trilogy Borges had started with Fervor of Buenos Aires (1923).

There is a particular, tangible atmosphere that acts as a bond among those three collections, one that goes beyond the lyrical tone and elegance one may instantly perceive even after the first quick glance. Through the art of poetry (that Borges later on would keep cultivating, letting it become another part of his being, unfortunately not as renowned as his short stories), he combined everyday things with existential matters. Streets, the countryside, well-lighted patios, a city that is heard as if it were a verse; all elements that were used to deconstruct existence, allowing philosophical dilemmas to come to surface, thus merging a world of facts with a metaphysical realm.

After I read the last poem, my mind was plagued with certainties, half-truths and obstinate doubts. A timid hand closed the book as a sense of joy mixed with nostalgia welled up inside me.

Night has fallen and I await, with a wistful smile, I hope; I yearn for that melody to last until dawn.

* Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.

Collected Poems - Dylan Thomas

Rating: ★★★★

08/11/16

A process in the weather of the heart

A process in the weather of the heart
Turns damp to dry; the golden shot
Storms in the freezing tomb.
A weather in the quarter of the veins

Turns night to day; blood in their suns
Lights up the living worm.

A process in the eye forwarns
The bones of blindness; and the womb
Drives in a death as life leaks out.

A darkness in the weather of the eye
Is half its light; the fathomed sea
Breaks on unangled land.
The seed that makes a forest of the loin
Forks half its fruit; and half drops down,
Slow in a sleeping wind.

A weather in the flesh and bone
Is damp and dry; the quick and dead
Move like two ghosts before the eye.

A process in the weather of the world
Turns ghost to ghost; each mothered child
Sits in their double shade.
A process blows the moon into the sun,
Pulls down the shabby curtains of the skin;
And the heart gives up its dead.

* Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.

Gitanjali or Song Offerings: Introduced by W. B. Yeats - Rabindranath Tagore

Rating: ★★★

06/05/17

It is the pang of separation

It is the pang of separation that spreads throughout the world and gives birth to shapes innumerable in the infinite sky.

It is this sorrow of separation that gazes in silence all night from star to star and becomes lyric among rustling leaves in rainy darkness of July.

It is this overspreading pain that deepens into loves and desires, into sufferings and joys in human homes; and this it is that ever melts and flows in songs through my poet's heart.

* Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.

Miyazawa Kenji: Selections - Kenji Miyazawa

Rating: ★★★

13/04/17

I said, “The evening sun the color of ancient gold,”
and your eyes reproach me:
Why seize on despicable gold
to compare to this solemn evening sun?

The family of Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933) practiced Pure Land Buddhism, a prominent branch of Mahayana Buddhism. In 1915, the poet shook the foundations of their relative’s faith when he decided to convert to Nichiren Buddhism, another branch. Such conversion was prompted by the Lotus Sūtra – a deep influence on his poetry, which brims with Buddhist terms without actually delving into essential notions. I had to return to some texts since I had forgotten some concepts.

My rating is based on my inability to relate to most of Miyazawa’s poems. Perhaps their complexity exceeded my understanding and a clear image turned into labyrinthine symbolism. But I did find some enjoyment. Some of his poems are imbued with the serene expressions of nature, with the sense of a challenging yet reachable enlightenment. With the verifiable elements of science, the volatile human nature, and religion trying to build bridges between them.

Other poems are infused with the monochromatic presence of death. Miyazawa's verse was deeply affected by the demise of his younger sister, Toshi, on November 27, 1922. That same day, he wrote three poems. With that loneliness you must make music. Always.

This collection of somewhat disjointed thoughts started with an excerpt of a poem called "Mr. Pamirs the Scholar Takes a Walk." I marveled at the juxtaposition of simple yet sophisticated visuals which express an ideal version of ourselves. A faithful portrait of the chasm between a sublime sight and a worldly kingdom, transient by definition. Someone subscribing to such values is a rare treasure. The rest is just noise.

* Photo credit: Kuon-ji, temple founded by Nichiren, a Japanese Buddhist priest, in 1281 / via Panoramio

The Book of Images - Rainer Maria Rilke

Rating: ★★★★

28/04/17

I would like to step out of my heart’s door
and be under the great sky.
— Rilke, “Lament”

A myriad of shades, a plethora of images, the juxtaposition of sentiments which soothe and unsettle. Das Buch der Bilder.

A miscellany of visuals and existential hues. A mélange of nuances and distinctive sounds. A sense of clarity with the scent of perplexity. The mystical and the ordinary fluctuate in harmony. Chaotic perfection takes this collection by storm. A vision. A metaphor. A book. A thousand mirrors. The book of images.

The last of his line

I have no paternal house,

nor have I lost one;

my mother birthed me out

into the world.

Here I stand now in the world and go

even deeper into the world

and have my happiness and have my woe

and have each one alone.

...

This poetry collection was first published in 1902, when Rilke was twenty-six years old. The second edition, which appeared in 1906, is the one I read, translated by Edward Snow and published in 2014. A work which apparently knew how to circumvent the challenges of poetry and translation, for Rilke’s verses acquire a natural fluency by virtue of Snow’s mastery.

Requiem

…

Life is only a part… of what?

Life is only a note… in what?

Life has meaning only joined with many

receding circles of increasing space, –

life is only the dream of a dream,

but waking is elsewhere.

The variety of themes and the original approach chosen by Rilke have distinguished his writing until evanescent categories were completely gone, elevating poetry to sometimes unfathomable levels. Sacred symbols and mundane illustrations coalesce in the land of polarity. If the reader finds a way to connect with the poetic expressions Rilke used to deconstruct the world, then a memorable journey will soon begin. A journey in which the light of day emphasizes the color of a rose, and the silence of a room shape the nights that never end. The days that bring solace. The nights that beg for poetry. The days of pressure. The nights that dislike the sound of echo; the nights that long for it afterwards amidst confusion. The nights of indifference and quick replacements too despicable to confess. The nights when childhood is a distant memory, when guardian angels seem oblivious, when life is heavier than the weight of all things.*

* From the poem “The Neighbor”
** Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.

Poemas y sonetos - Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

Rating: ★★★★

27/02/17

Women and books are not every man’s best friends

Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Sister Joan Agnes of the

Cross. The Tenth Muse. The illegitimate child. The self-taught scholar. She was born in San Miguel Nepantla, near Mexico City, which was part of the Spanish Empire, in 1651. Having learned how to read and write at age 3, she devoured every book she found in her grandfather’s library. Books both appropriate and forbidden, according to the wisdom of a Church composed of fallible men. By virtue of her brilliant mind, she harvested admiration and envy. And the strength of the latter, naturally, resonated across her body, her spirit, her legacy. Much has been said, much has been hidden. A fascinating and controversial figure brimming with beauty and the rare charms of wit. I was instantly captivated by her life and poetry, which echoes the lyrical nature of a restless soul. Her verses disclose the desire for knowledge, the delights of a good argument, the sensuous beauty of the flesh, the chants to the divine, the impulse of a free spirit and a constrained body. Truths essentially secular, revelations intrinsically sacred. Breathtaking complexity. Confusion and longing.

The unbearable heaviness of being.

Este amoroso tormento

Este amoroso tormento

que en mi corazón se ve,

sé que lo siento, y no sé

la causa por qué lo siento.

Siento una grave agonía

por lograr un devaneo

que empieza como deseo

y para en melancolía.

…

Siento mal del mismo bien

con receloso temor,

y me obliga el mismo amor

tal vez a mostrar desdén.

*

This amorous torment

This amorous torment

which in my heart can be seen

I know I feel it yet don’t know

the reason of this feeling.

I feel a strong agony

at having a dalliance,

that begins as desire

and ends in melancholy.

...

I feel bad for good itself

with suspicious fear

and obliged by the same love

perhaps to show disdain.

The young Juana Inés couldn’t even touch the threshold of the university, not even while wearing men’s clothes, as she once naively contrived, so she decided to wear a religious habit in order to assuage her thirst for knowledge. An activity which wouldn’t interfere with her studies, and probably would save her from her condition of illegitimacy, as stated by some sources. A bold decision that not always lived up to her expectations, for being married to God meant prayers and penitence, cooking, needlework, cleaning, more penitence. Her spiritual marriage didn’t involve reading and writing about worldly matters. It didn’t involve philosophy, theology, logic nor passion. It didn’t involve thinking. Nonetheless, Juana Inés, now Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, had other plans which obeyed the talents that God, her creator, for some reason gave her.

Insinúa su aversión a los vicios

¿En perseguirme, mundo, qué interesas?

¿En qué te ofendo, cuando sólo intento

poner bellezas en mi entendimiento

y no mi entendimiento en las bellezas?

*

Suggesting her aversion to vice

O World, why do you wish to persecute me?

How do I offend you, when I intend

only to fix beauty in my intellect,

and never my intellect fix on beauty?

After some years, and particularly since 1690 (the year when she dared to question the theological views of one celebrated Portuguese Jesuit preacher), a nun and her wondrous quill became an ecclesiastic insult. An inexcusable transgression. An unpardonable song of rebellion in a world where some women truly believed the small fate imposed by men, while others nodded in despairing acquiescence.

Finjamos que soy feliz

Finjamos que soy feliz,

triste pensamiento, un rato;

quizá prodréis persuadirme,

aunque yo sé lo contrario...

…

Si es mío mi entendimiento,

¿por qué siempre he de encontrarlo

tan torpe para el alivio,

tan agudo para el daño?

*

Let us pretend that I'm happy

Let us pretend that I'm happy,

sad thought, for a while;

you may actually persuade me

but I know otherwise

...

If it's mine my understanding,

Why always must it be

So dull and slow to pleasure,

So keen for injury?

After watching a biopic, a series on Netflix, and reading a brief biography, I thought it was time to get acquainted with this brilliant woman's work (otherwise, I confess, I wouldn't have paid her much attention). A person who defended women's right to gain knowledge like any other man, in a time when a woman was considered an inferior being and the source of all sin; a time when reading Copernicus was the safest path to the diverse punishments inflicted by the Inquisition.

It was an interesting social experiment to compare a protest I witnessed a couple of weeks ago, where women decided to protect her rights by going topless (watch out, Wollstonecraft) with a woman who, amid the ignorance and misogyny of a harsh 17th century, decided to defend those same rights with her mind. A religious woman whose quill didn’t shiver and once wrote to foolish men, who accuse/Women without good reason/You are the cause of what you blame/Yours the guilt you deny...

By 1693, Sor Juana Inés relegated her literary creativity. She, the worst of all women, was forced to repent by the pressure of the Church, embodied by Francisco de Aguiar y Seijas, Archbishop of Mexico, for being a vain spirit too attached to earthly matters, for neglecting her duties as a nun, for daring to think like a man. Her books, her musical instruments, her scientific tools – everything was sold or confiscated, depending on the source. Her intellectual force couldn’t resist the clerical opposition which not only would affect her, but her Sisters as well. In that context, her words were no longer published; she immersed herself in the activities of the convent. She died in 1695 during a plague, while taking care of other stricken nuns.

According to some documents, after Sor Juana Inés' death, several writings – sacred and profane – were found in her room. She never published a word in the eyes of the Church again, but she never stopped writing either.

Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. The heavens and the earth tried to conquer her beautiful mind.

Dime vencedor rapaz

…

En dos partes dividida

tengo el alma en confusión:

una, esclava a la pasión,

y otra, a la razón medida.

Guerra civil, encendida,

aflige el pecho importuna:

quiere vencer cada una,

y entre fortunas tan varias,

morirán ambas contrarias

pero vencerá ninguna.

…

pues podré decir, al verme

expirar sin entregarme,

que conseguiste matarme

mas no pudiste vencerme.

*

Ascendent raptor speak

…

My soul is cleft

confusedly in twain.

Half - a thrall to passion,

the other - reason's slave.

Civil war, inflamed, importunate

afflicts this breast:

each strives to overwhelm his counterpart;

but amidst such mutinous counterstorms,

both helmsmen must perish,

neither, return to port.

…

since it will be said - to see me fall

yet not surrender -

that you managed to kill

but failed to conquer.

The mind that saw no obstacle in gender or time. That put common citizens, sensible clergymen and viceroys under her intellectual spell. That gained her inveterate enemies but also kind-hearted friends who remained admiring her work during the worst of times, and after her death. That transcended the limits of her body. For being enamored with the mind of another human being is the most long-lasting connection to which anyone may aspire.

* 4.5 stars. I wasn’t exactly thrilled by this edition. I noticed that there were one or two incomplete versions of poems and no indication - vexing. If you know Spanish, you may want to look for another collection.

* Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.

Un Signo en tu Sombra - Alejandra Pizarnik

Rating: ★★★

22/02/17

Buenos Aires, 1955.

The romanticism of youth? The sentimental noise, the affectionate supplication. A woman desperately, constantly asking for something, waiting.

One’s voice is not enough.

Buenos Aires, 2017.

A poem redolent of untamed ardor made my pride feel awkward. Words from which desperation emanates.

No, nothing will be begged.

Uncertainty over beseechment. Existential silence over the cloying response of rejection. A muffled scream over a visible earthquake.

No, nothing will be seen.

Yes, everything has been forgotten, except

*

* Translation by Yvette Siegert

The Luminous Landscape: Chinese Art and Poetry - Richard Lewis (Editor)

Rating: ★★★★

22/01/17

Autumn is beginning, the weather is turning chill.
Crickets move in to sing under my bed.
A thousand things surge into my mind
And grieve my heart.
A thousand tales search for words;
But to whom will they be told?
Ruan Ji (210–263)



Shen Quan, "Birds and Flowers - Dragonfly on Wisteria"

This is a short yet fine collection of Chinese art and poetry that, regardless of the period, gracefully conveys the profound bond between nature and the human perception of it; the relationship between the essence of every element that constitutes a landscape and human nature.

The mountain moon shines on a cloudless sky.
Deep in the night the wind rises among the pines.
I wish to weave my thoughts into a song for my jade lute,
But the pine wind never ceases blowing.
Zhu Yi-zun (1629–1709)

This book introduces us to the work of numerous Chinese poets who captured the spirit of every one of the elements mentioned above and transformed them into evocative poems capable of portraying the countless shades of our nature, which usually involves a sense of longing that only sees infinity.

I must endure the sorrow of leaving these
green mountains,
But can I forget their blue streams?
Wang Wei (701- 761)



Mu Xi, "Eight Views of Hsiao Hsiang."

The contemplation of an ethereal scenery as our own introspection evolves in complete harmony. The subtle and vehement nuances of our mood. The affection for solitude personified by the imposing mountains engulfed by diaphanous clouds. The need to hear another sound beyond the echo of our own voice that barely disrupts the splendor of a pond. Someone to tell how sublime the lake whitened by the moon is. Yes, all the essentials and principles that are part of us.

For Three Days I Traveled Through Mountains;
When the Mountains Came to an End I Was Deeply Moved

Before my eyes, green mountains –
I have truly loved them.
Why not have their craggy heights before me every day?
But this morning, the curtain fell,
the mountains were swept away,
and I felt unhappy, as if I were saying goodbye
to a friend.
Yuan Zhongdao (1570–1624)

Those contrasting realities and other aspects of human life are also depicted through painting, and this collection includes several beauteous creations of Chinese artists that are exquisitely combined with the referred poems. As the editor states, art and poetry were often one entity, to the point of poems being inscribed on the paintings themselves. He summarizes that fact quite eloquently by quoting an old Chinese proverb: “A picture is a voiceless poem, a poem is a vocal picture.”

This collection wasn’t the one I intended to read, but since I still can’t find the book I wanted, I gave this one a try. And I’m glad I did. I found many voiceless poems interspersed with vocal pictures that transport the reader to the beautiful simplicity of nature, despite mountains made of concrete. A relaxing read to hold on to when one has to return to civilization.

...haze, mist, and the haunting spirits of the mountains are what human nature seeks, and yet can rarely find.
Guo Xi (1020–1090)

* The last painting is not from the book (via Tranquil Resonance)
** Update Jan 26, 17: I found the book I was looking for.

Poems Under Saturn: Poèmes saturniens (Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation) - Paul Verlaine, Karl Kirchwey (Translator)

Rating: ★★★★

05/12/16

Sentimental Stroll

The setting sun cast its final rays
And the breeze rocked the pale water lilies;
Among the reeds, the huge water
Lilies shone sadly on the calm water.
Me, I wandered alone, walking my wound
Through the willow grove, the length of the pond
Where the vague mist conjured up some vast
Despairing milky ghost
With the voice of teals crying
As they called to each other, beating their wings
Through the willow grove where I alone wandered
Walking my wound; and the thick shroud
Of shadows came to drown the final rays
Of the setting sun in their pale waves
And, among the reeds, the water
Lilies, the huge water lilies on the calm water.

*

Promenade sentimentale

Le couchant dardait ses rayons suprêmes
Et le vent berçait les nénuphars blêmes;
Les grands nénuphars entre les roseaux,
Tristement luisaient sur les calmes eaux.
Moi, j’errais tout seul, promenant ma plaie
Au long de l’étang, parmi la saulaie
Où la brume vague évoquait un grand
Fantôme laiteux se désespérant
Et pleurant avec la voix des sarcelles
Qui se rappelaient en battant des ailes
Parmi la saulaie où j’errais tout seul
Promenant ma plaie; et l’épais linceul
Des ténèbres vint noyer les suprêmes
Rayons du couchant dans ses ondes blêmes
Et des nénuphars, parmi les roseaux,
Des grands nénuphars sur les calmes eaux.

Verlaine, observer and blind, creator and destroyer; a poet made of light and shadows. A parallel between this author and Rimbaud's poetry is predictable but ineluctable. Undoubtedly, while I liked the young poet's sophisticated song of perpetual revolt and mystifying symbols, I was able to connect with Verlaine's art on a deeper level (also young when he wrote this collection), as he also unveiled all aspects of human nature—both sublime and decadent, depending on the eye of the beholder—with sheer beauty, sumptuous symbolism and a clear voice whose melody resonated with me several times, creating evocative images which may portray every emotion we are capable of feeling. 

 * Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.

Dibaxu - Juan Gelman

Rating: ★★★★

03/11/16

This is a bilingual Ladino-Castellano poetry collection written by acclaimed Argentine poet Juan dibaxu, a Sephardic term that means “under”. The title already conveys the complex universe the reader may find under the veil of a seeming simplicity; a deluge of obstreperous feelings said in an undertone. The past, love, confusion, countless sensations, strong desires, empty spaces, a search for a homeland – roots with which I fail to identify, once more.

Gelman, published in 1994. He decided to call it

In this book, Gelman's poems first appear in Ladino and then in Spanish; I'll follow the same order, including the English translation afterwards.

XV

tu boz sta escura

di bezus qui a mí no dieras/

di bezus qui a mí no das/

la nochi es polvu dest'ixiliu/

*

tu voz está oscura

de besos que no me diste/

de besos que no me das/

la noche es polvo de este exilio/

*

your voice is dark

of kisses that you did not give to me/

of kisses that you do not give to me/

night is dust from this exile/

The act of revealing real emotions – an act often fraught with ineffable difficulty – never looked so simple. Gelman masterfully expresses in a few words, everything that sometimes requires numerous pages and that tangible concept of fleeting nature we call time; everything that emerges from the depths of love, regret,

shame.

XXIV

amarti es istu:

un avla qui va a dizer/

un arvulicu sin folyas

qui da solombra/

*

amarte es esto:

una palabra que está por decir/

un arbolito sin hojas

que da sombra/

*

loving you is this:

a word that is about to speak/

a small tree without leaves

that provides shade/

Through unique and recurring imagery and a naturally distinctive cadence, he places the reader inside his mind; our mind, that inhospitable region where dreams and yearnings continue to accumulate in secrecy, longing for emotional impetus. Concise lines that belong to a bigger picture, a fragmented reality; lines that are accompanied by the use of somewhat distracting slashes, part of the author's individual style.

X

dizis avlas cun árvulis

tenin folyas qui cantan

y páxarus

qui adjuntan sol/

tu silenziu

disparta

lus gritus

dil mundu/

*

dices palabras con árboles/

tienen hojas que cantan

y pájaros

que juntan sol/

tu silencio

despierta

los gritos

del mundo/

*

you say words with trees/

they have leaves that sing

and birds

that gather sun/

your silence

awakes

the cries

of the world/

Gelman's poetry reveals itself without any affectation; some things are open to interpretation but amid so much comforting frankness, they are so, so clear. He voices his thoughts with simple yet evocative metaphors and a pithy language which defies any traditional rule.

His thoughts, thus, are diaphanous as fire.

XXIX

…

pondrí mi spantu londji/

dibaxu dil pasadu/

qui arde

cayadu com'il sol/

*

…

pondré mi espanto lejos/

debajo del pasado/

que arde

callado como el sol/

*

…

i will set my fear afar/

underneath the past/

that burns

silent as the sun/

* Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.

Illuminations - Arthur Rimbaud

Rating: ★★★

28/10/16

Youth

I. Sunday

When homework is done, the inevitable descent from heaven and the visitation of

memories, and the session of rhythms invade the dwelling, the head and the world of the spirit.

—A horse scampers off along the suburban turf and the gardens and the wood lots, besieged by the carbonic plague. Somewhere in the world, a wretched melodramatic woman is sighing for unlikely desertions.

Desperadoes are languishing for storms, drunkenness, wounds. Little children are stifling curses along the rivers.

I must study some more to the sound of the consuming work which forms in all the people and rises up in them.

II. Sonnet

Man of usual constitution, wasn't the flesh a fruit hanging in the orchard? —O childhood days!—wasn't the body a treasure to spend?—wasn't love the peril or the strength of Psyche? ... 

* Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.

Hotel Insomnia - Charles Simic

Rating: ★★★★

14/09/16

Los Heraldos Negros - César Vallejo

Rating: ★★★★

06/04/15-07/08/16

The heart of a poet usually brims with love, misery; both. In that sense, a great assortment of

struggles emerges, echoing the burden of the indecisive soul. The feeling of being absorbed, captured by the vicissitudes of everyday life, the unexpected events of a predictable occupation. Existential gaps for which no bridge seems to be enough. Love gliding down a mountainside. Incomplete, unwanted, evanescent.

The kind of love that runs through the veins of a poet – in this case, César Vallejo – seems incomprehensible. Since its obscurity mystifies me, I occasionally end up losing interest. I can't relate to it that much. Sometimes, I don't even try. Other times, I wished I hadn't.

Melancolía, dejame de secarme la vida.

“Avestruz” (21)

My first Vallejo. I enjoyed reading the poems I was able to connect with, naturally; not many but enough. This poet thoroughly explored themes such as religion and love in a book published in 1918. It was his first book and still, there is a halo of maturity in his work. This collection has been named after the first poem, "Los Heraldos Negros" ("The Black Heralds"); its beauty and complexity explains such honor. Its verses, shrouded in mystique, illustrate how Vallejo links the human sorrow and disappointment to several religious images, as he ascribes some misfortunes to the amalgamation of free will and the activity (or lack of it) of a supreme being. There is a palpable sense of loss and guilt in a world where explanations are everything but perspicuous. His harrowing “I don't know!” breaks the silence and leaves me wondering about that enigmatic poet; the possibility that everything might have always been in his hands.

Los Heraldos Negros

Hay golpes en la vida, tan fuertes... ¡Yo no sé!

Golpes como del odio de Dios; como si ante ellos,

la resaca de todo lo sufrido

se empozara en el alma. ¡Yo no sé!

Son pocos; pero son. Abren zanjas oscuras

en el rostro más fiero y en el lomo más fuerte.

Serán tal vez los potros de bárbaros atilas;

o los heraldos negros que nos manda la Muerte.

Son las caídas hondas de los Cristos del alma,

de alguna fe adorable que el Destino blasfema.

Estos golpes sangrientos son las crepitaciones

de algún pan que en la puerta del horno se nos quema.

Y el hombre. Pobre. ¡Pobre! Vuelve los ojos, como

cuando por sobre el hombro nos llama una palmada;

vuelve los ojos locos, y todo lo vivido

se empoza, como charco de culpa, en la mirada.

Hay golpes en la vida, tan fuertes. ¡Yo no sé!

*

The Black Heralds

There are blows in life, so powerful… I don't know!

Blows as from the hatred of God; as if, facing them,

the undertow of everything suffered

welled up in the soul… I don't know!

They are few; but they are… They open dark trenches

in the fiercest face and in the strongest back.

Perhaps they are the colts of barbaric Attilas;

or the black heralds sent to us by Death.

They are the deep falls of the Christs of the soul,

of some adored faith blasphemed by Destiny.

Those bloodstained blows are the crackling of

bread burning up at the oven door.

And man… Poor… poor! He turns his eyes, as

when a slap on the shoulder summons us;

turns his crazed eyes, and everything lived

wells up, like a pool of guilt, in his look.

There are blows in life, so powerful… I don't know! (11)

Logically evocative, irrationally beautiful. Most of Vallejo's poems deal with universal themes such as love, death, fate, absurdity, his land and customs; often taking refuge in religion, which is generally used to portray human existence amid an ocean of uncertainties; the ebb and flow of meanings and indifference. The chimeric balance between our choices and predestination. The sense of a futile quest. A tiresome undertaking fueled by our adamant nature. An unavoidable instinct. A boulder rolling up and down, unceasingly.

Espergesia

Yo nací un día

que Dios estuvo enfermo.

...Hay un vacío

en mi aire metafísico

que nadie ha de palpar:

el claustro de un silencio

que habló a flor de fuego...

*

I was born on a day

when God was sick.

...There is an empty place

in my metaphysical shape

that no one can reach:

a cloister of silence

that spoke with the fire of its voice muffled... (81)

As I mentioned before, excessive amounts of religious references/praises don't keep me interested for a long time. That is the reason some poems captivated me while others were somewhat tedious to me. Nevertheless, the following poem demonstrates this writer's brilliance.

Los Anillos Fatigados

Hay ganas de volver, de amar, de no ausentarse,

y hay ganas de morir, combatido por dos

aguas encontradas que jamás han de istmarse.

Hay ganas: de un gran beso que amortaje a la Vida,

que acaba en el áfrica de una agonía ardiente,

suicida!

Hay ganas de... no tener ganas. Señor;

a ti yo te señalo. con el dedo deicida:

hay ganas de no haber tenido corazón.

La primavera vuelve, vuelve y se irá. Y Dios,

curvado en tiempo, se repite, y pasa:  pasa:

a cuestas con la espina dorsal del Universo.

Cuando, las sienes tocan su lúgubre tambor...

cuando me duele el sueño grabado en un puñal,

hay ganas de quedarse plantado en este verso!

*

Weary rings

There are desires to return, to love, to not disappear,

and there are desires to die, fought by two

opposing waters that have never isthmused.

There are desires for a great kiss that would shroud Life,

one that ends in the Africa of a fiery agony,

a suicide!

There are desires to... have no desires, Lord;

I point my deicidal finger at you:

there are desires to not have had a heart.

Spring returns, returns and will depart. And God,

bent in time, repeats himself, and passes, passes

with the spinal column of the Universe on his back.

When my temples beat their lugubrious drum,

when the dream engraved on a dagger aches me,

there are desires to be left standing in this verse! (69)

Poetry, Vallejo's defense. A reproach, a devotional song, a wistful contemplation.

Melancholy, stop drying up my life.

"Ostrich" (21)

 * Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.

W. B. Yeats: Selected Poems - W.B. Yeats

Rating: ★★★

11/07/16

The last stroke of midnight dies.
All day in the one chair
From dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have
ranged
In rambling talk with an image of air:
Vague memories, nothing but memories.
— W.B. Yeats, “Broken Dreams”, The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)

From the depths of anything mysterious and unfathomable, here come bursts of poetry moving across the years, making impressions with an assortment of intensities and kaleidoscopic visualizations: W.B. Yeats and his unique art. This collection includes verses clear as an Irish summer day; impenetrable as another human soul. And that is the crux of the matter: the complexity to be found in Yeats' poetry may be perceived as utterly beautiful or absolutely inscrutable; a colorful enigma sometimes tiptoeing to the brink of tedium. The most readable thing here is the formidable introduction that tries to shed some light on this poet's work.

A poet in love, a poet in misery. His mind, burdened with the familiar weight of unrequited love – embodied by the fierce Maud Gonne, a woman who enchanted him with her beauty and frankness and became his long-time muse – and heavily influenced by the political scenario of his country, brought different styles to life, which are clearly seen in this selection. Poems replete with love, ideals and disillusion, longing and unhappiness, a fervent nationalism, the loud and the implicit, life and the ruins that time, unapologetically, leaves behind; copious amounts of symbolism, mystique, folklore, question marks... and diverse techniques that never cease to amaze, as the richness of his language. So, when you make some sense out of all those elements, ah, a real treat. I wish that would have happened more often. Perhaps, if I had been steeped in Irish history and mythology, it would have been easier for me to understand, his earlier work in particular. Unfortunately, most of this iconic poet's work didn't resonate with me that much. I did find some memorable poems I read many times, notably some of his later years, whose reflections on human existence, age and death are hauntingly evocative. For that is also what this book encapsulates: an entire life. It perfectly depicts the evolution of a man and his mind; his first steps and the pinnacle of his art.

I think I will revisit this book someday. Ever since I've read one of his plays, I became very fond of his exquisitely lyrical language. It was only fair to assume I was going to love his poetry. (?) But I didn't; I loved a couple of poems but overall, I liked it, and I struggled; therefore, I can't give this a 4/5-star rating just to, you know, look good in front of my fellow poetry lovers.

This is one of the few times I feel morally obligated to carry out some sort of brief analysis based on ratings of a poetry collection that wasn't exactly what I expected. It must be the echo of my own guilt.

From Crossways (1889)
✩✩

▪▫▪

From The Rose (1893)
✩✩✩✩

When You Are Old
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

The Two Trees
…
Gaze no more in the bitter glass
The demons, with their subtle guile,
Lift up before us when they pass,
Or only gaze a little while;
For there a fatal image grows
That the stormy night receives,
Roots half hidden under snows,
Broken boughs and blackened leaves.
For all things turn to barrenness
In the dim glass the demons hold,
The glass of outer weariness,
Made when God slept in times of old.
...

▪▫▪

From The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)
✩✩✩

The Secret Rose
...I, too, await
The hour of thy great wind of love and hate.

▪▫▪

From In the Seven Woods (1903)
✩✩✩

▪▫▪

From The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)
✩✩✩✩

No Second Troy
…
Was there another Troy for her to burn?

Reconciliation
…
But, dear, cling close to me; since you were gone,
My barren thoughts have chilled me to the bone.

▪▫▪

From Responsibilities (1914)
✩✩✩

September 1913
…
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.
...

Beggar to Beggar Cried
'Time to put off the world and go somewhere
And find my health again in the sea air,'
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
'And make my soul before my pate is bare.-

'And get a comfortable wife and house
To rid me of the devil in my shoes,'
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
'And the worse devil that is between my thighs.'
…

(Very classy.)

▪▫▪

From The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)
✩✩✩✩

The Wild Swans at Coole
…
But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
I know that I shall meet my fate,
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love...

Ego Dominus Tuus
...
Ille. His art is happy, but who knows his mind?

▪▫▪

From Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921)
✩✩✩

The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...

▪▫▪

From The Tower (1928)
✩✩✩✩

Sailing to Byzantium
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
– Those dying generations – at their song,
The salmon‐falls, the mackerel‐crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies...
(One of the best.)

The Tower
…
Did all old men and women, rich and poor,
Who trod upon these rocks or passed this door,
Whether in public or in secret rage
As I do now against old age?
But I have found an answer in those eyes
That are impatient to be gone;
Go therefore; but leave Hanrahan,
For I need all his mighty memories.
...
Does the imagination dwell the most
Upon a woman won or woman lost?
If on the lost, admit you turned aside
From a great labyrinth out of pride,
Cowardice, some silly over-subtle thought
Or anything called conscience once;
And that if memory recur, the sun's
Under eclipse and the day blotted out.
...

Two Songs From a Play
…
Everything that man esteems
Endures a moment or a day.
Love's pleasure drives his love away,
The painter's brush consumes his dreams...

A Man Young and Old
…
Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say;
Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have
looked into the eye of day;
The second best's a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.

▪▫▪

From The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)
✩✩✩✩

In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz
…
Dear shadows, now you know it all,
All the folly of a fight
With a common wrong or right.
The innocent and the beautiful
Have no enemy but time...

Death
…
He knows death to the bone –
Man has created death.

A Dialogue of Self and Soul
My Soul. I summon to the winding ancient stair;
Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,
Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,
Upon the breathless starlit air,
Upon the star that marks the hidden pole;
Fix every wandering thought upon
That quarter where all thought is done:
Who can distinguish darkness from the soul?
…

(Sublime.)

Blood And The Moon
…
For wisdom is the property of the dead,
A something incompatible with life; and power,
Like everything that has the stain of blood,
A property of the living; but no stain
Can come upon the visage of the moon
When it has looked in glory from a cloud.

Vacillation
…
What's the meaning of all song?
'Let all things pass away.'

▪▫▪

From Words for Music Perhaps
✩✩✩

▪▫▪

From A Woman Young and Old
✩✩✩

II
Before the world was made
…
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity's displayed:
I'm looking for the face I had
Before the world was made.

▪▫▪

From A Full Moon in March (1935)
✩✩✩

▪▫▪

From Last Poems (1936-1939)
✩✩✩✩

The Wild Old Wicked Man
…
I have what no young man can have
Because he loves too much.
Words I have that can pierce the heart,
But what can he do but touch?'
...

Man and the Echo
Man
In a cleft that's christened Alt
Under broken stone I halt
At the bottom of a pit
That broad noon has never lit,
And shout a secret to the stone.
All that I have said and done,
Now that I am old and ill,
Turns into a question till
I lie awake night after night
And never get the answers right...

 * Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.

Fervor de Buenos Aires - Jorge Luis Borges

Rating: ★★★★
29/02/16

Habré de levantar la vasta vida
que aún ahora es tu espejo:
cada mañana habré de reconstruirla.
(Ausencia)

I shall raise the wide life
that is still your mirror:
each morning I shall rebuild it.
(Absence)

Borges published this book in 1923. It was his first collection of poems, one that would not only represent an ode to the capital's nostalgic beauty, but also his first attempt at dealing with philosophical issues in the land of the uncertain. Of the impossible and the extreme. Lights of different colors; shadows of different shapes. A silent passion and the lyrical tone you would not expect from him. But perhaps you should.

I could relate to those kinds of poems, of course. The rest of them convey a closeness to a place that I would never be able to recognize. A devotion driven by some irresistible force that made everything seem rather foreign to me. However, many poems resonate with different meanings and emotions and thus have become part of my memory.

Inscripción en cualquier Sepulcro

No arriesgue el mármol temerario

gárrulas transgresiones al todopoder del olvido,

enumerando con prolijidad

el nombre, la opinión, los acontecimientos, la patria.

Tanto abalorio bien adjudicado está a la tiniebla

y el mármol no hable lo que callan los hombres.

Lo esencial de la vida fenecida

—la trémula esperanza,

el milagro implacable del dolor y el asombro del goce—

siempre perdurará.

Ciegamente reclama duración el alma arbitraria

cuando la tiene asegurada en vidas ajenas,

cuando tú mismo eres el espejo y la réplica

de quienes no alcanzaron tu tiempo

y otros serán (y son) tu inmortalidad en la tierra.

Inscription on any Tomb

Let not the rash marble risk

garrulous breaches of oblivion’s omnipotence,

in many words recalling

name, renown, events, birthplace.

All those glass jewels are best left in the dark.

Let not the marble say what men do not.

The essentials of the dead man’s life—

the trembling hope,

the implacable miracle of pain, the wonder of sensual delight—

will abide forever.

Blindly the willful soul asks for length of days

when its survival is assured by the lives of others,

when you yourself are the embodied continuance

of those who did not live into your time

and others will be (and are) your immortality on earth.

*

Afterglow

Siempre es conmovedor el ocaso

por indigente o charro que sea,

pero más conmovedor todavía

es aquel brillo desesperado y final

que herrumbra la llanura

cuando el sol último se ha hundido.

Nos duele sostener esa luz tirante y distinta,

esa alucinación que impone al espacio

el unánime miedo de la sombra

y que cesa de golpe

cuando notamos su falsía,

como cesan los sueños

cuando sabemos que soñamos.

Afterglow

Sunset is always disturbing

whether theatrical or muted,

but still more disturbing

is that last desperate glow

that turns the plain to rust

when on the horizon nothing is left

of the pomp and clamor of the setting sun.

How hard holding on to that light, so tautly drawn

and different,

that hallucination which the human fear of the dark

imposes on space

and which ceases at once

the moment we realize its falsity,

the way a dream is broken

the moment the sleeper knows he is dreaming.

* Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.