Border of a Dream: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (Spanish and English Edition) [Paperback]

Antonio Machado (Author), Willis Barnstone (Translator, Introduction)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1556591985 | ISBN-13: 978-1556591983 | Publication Date: November 1, 2003

Antonio Machado (1875–1939) is Spain’s master poet, the explorer of dream and landscape, and of consciousness below language. Widely regarded as the greatest twentieth century poet who wrote in Spanish, Machado—like his contemporary Rilke—is intensely introspective and meditative. In this collection, the unparalleled translator Willis Barnstone, returns to the poet with whom he first started his distinguished career, offering a new bilingual edition which provides a sweeping assessment of Machado’s work. In addition, Border of a Dream includes a reminiscence by Nobel Laureate Juan Ramón Jiménez and a foreword by John Dos Passos.

from "Proverbs and Songs"

Absolute faith. We neither are nor will be.
Our whole life is borrowed
We brought nothing. With nothing we leave.
*
You say nothing is created?
Don’t worry. With clay
of the earth make a cup
so your brother can drink.

Born near Seville, Spain, Antonio Machado turned to a career in writing and translating in order to help support his family after the death of his father in 1893. His growing reputation as a poet led to teaching posts in various cities in Spain and, eventually, he returned to finish his degree from the University of Madrid in 1918. He remained in Madrid after the outbreak of civil war, committed to the Republican cause, but the violence finally forced him to flee. He died an exile in France.

Willis Barnstone is one of America’s foremost translator-poets, bringing into English an extraordinary range of work, from Mao Tse-tung to the New Testament.

Product Details

• Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Copper Canyon Press (November 1, 2003)
• Language: Spanish, English
• ISBN-10: 1556591985
• ISBN-13: 978-1556591983
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #65,657 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #6 in Books > Libros en español > Literatura y ficción > Poesía
  • #68 in Books > History > Europe > Spain
  • #91 in Books > History > Americas > Central America

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delving Deeper into the Dream Below the Sun, June 17, 2004

By 

Gary Schmechel (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Border of a Dream: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (Spanish and English Edition) (Paperback)

Antonio Machado is one of the world's greatest poets. This new addition to the slowly growing opus of Machado in English is the largest yet published, and the closest to a "Collected Poems" that we are likely to have for some time to come. (Might Mr. Barnstone be persuaded to put together a Collected Poems of Antonio Machado?) I believe there are certain felicitous pairings of poets and translators, and that the pairing of Willis Barnstone with Machado is just such a case. Mr. Barnstone's earlier volume, The Dream Below The Sun, (The Crossing Press,1981), was my first introduction to Machado's "spare, luminous, profound" poems, and so his translations have been imprinted upon my psyche as "Machado in English." I have read other translations of Machado's work, but none have yet surpassed Mr. Barnstone's.
This selection of Machado's work incorporates the 150 poems from The Dream Below The Sun, the sonnets included in Six Masters of The Spanish Sonnet, an expanded version of the evocative, highly readable and informative essay from that volume as an introduction, and about eighty-five new poems. The crowning addition here is Mr. Barnstone's inclusion of the long ballad "The Land of Alvargonzález," the longest single sustained poem that Machado wrote, presented here for the second time in English (the first translation was published in 1982 in the U.K. by Dennis Doyle). Though Mr. Barnstone rhymes in many of the translations (no mean feat, as I know from personal experience), or uses assonance to help capture the musical quality so integral to Machado's work, in this longer piece he has chosen a kind of blank ballad verse that reads with the fluency, directness and starkness of the original. Like many "folk ballads," the poem deals with greed, jealousy, murder (in this case: particide) and the supernatural force of a justice which metes out an appropriately grim punishment for the evildoers.
Mr. Barnstone has also included fuller translations of long sequences that Machado titled "Proverbs and Songs" (there are two different ones with this title: one from Fields of Castilla, 1907-1917, and another from New Songs, 1917-1930), plus numerous others featured in selected form in the earlier Crossing Press volume, and a few new ones. These sequences are full of intensely lucid perceptions, aphoristic incisiveness, paradoxical wisdom and sharp lyrical beauty. Their short, trenchant and suggestive nature brings many of them close to Japanese haikus in quality-certainly some of the closest produced by any major European poet.
I recommend this generous, beautiful volume to anyone who seeks a poetry that sings deeply and resonantly while imparting a heartfelt and soul-deep wisdom about the paradox of being alive as a human being. You will find yourself returning to these poems over and over again, as I have done.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful poetry., August 18, 2006

By 

Hunter Smith (California, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Border of a Dream: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (Spanish and English Edition) (Paperback)

I don't usually read poetry however I'd hear so much about Antonio Machado I thought I give it a try. It was well worth it because I love his work and I feel that I have finally found a poet I can understand and realate to. Although his writing makes me feel good inside - its not because its cheerful writing. It really makes me feel like I'm outside on a sunny, cool, autumn, afternoon pondering my life. It is simple writing in the words, yet creates a deeply introspective, sad, lonely feeling inside my heart - but in a wonderfully meaning way. Now I want to go to Spain, to the places where Antonio lived and wrote, and roam the countryside seeing the places that formed his sights to life.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reading is Believing, April 26, 2007

By 

Mark L. Mathia "Writer" (Omaha, NE USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Border of a Dream: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (Spanish and English Edition) (Paperback)

What an awesomely refreshing book of poems. Exhilarating and scenic Machado's writing is easy to connect with and explore. Refreshingly alive his words illustrate thoughts like no other. What a great read! If you have ever been a fan of poetry you should really check this book out.