Customer Reviews

Neruda and Vallejo: Selected Poems

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I recently finished reading this powerful collection of works, and enjoyed it immensely. Bly does a marvellous job of capturing the mood and power of these poets, and the biographical pieces were interesting and to the point.

This collection is also bilingual, which is a great plus even if you only listen for the sound of the poetic line.

I would highly recommend it for those who have not experienced either of these fine poets. It left me hungry for more of their work.

I found this collection very satisfying on several levels. First the translations are excellent, successfully capturing both concrete and abstract elements of both poets. Second, the careful selection by Mr. Bly of poems wonderfully illustrates the best elements of each poet, the abstract genius of Neruda and the passion of Vallejo. Third; this collection is bilingual and even if one does not speak spanish, reading and listening to the poems in the native language allows one to appreciate the rhyme schemes, tempos, alliteration etc.

This book suffers from terrible layout issues. Many of the poems are actually images, not text, so they are not searchable nor can you bookmark passages. Poems are often interrupted with stanzas in the other language. It was a lazy job by the publisher and is hardly readable.

This book contains selections from the work of two of the great Spanish language poets of the twentieth century, Pablo Neruda and Cesar Vallejo. The poems are translated by Robert Bly, John Knoepfle, and James Wright. Bly the editor writes introductory pieces on both of the poets, and Knoepfle adds a short introductory essay on Vallejo. The work is dual- language and the English translation faces the Spanish original. This is the way it should be done.
Bly in his introduction to the work of Neruda points out how deeply he is indebted to Whitman. Bly champions Neruda as one who goes to the root of things, who sees in his surrealistic collages much of the reality of the external world. I do not know Spanish and cannot judge the sound and feeling of the original. I found on the whole Neruda an explosive, original, strong poet, but one difficult for me anyway to feel and love the rhythm and music of. Whitman's great catalogues have a logic and clarity and are often inspired by a tone of celebration and singing . They are the great soul adventuring as it takes in a new world, a great continent of meaning. Neruda is passionate about the natural world and also does have strong expression of feelings, of sadness of loneliness and perhaps at times even love. But the 'logic' of the connections in the Poems often escapes me, and they feel to me unreal and arbitrary. Again I do not know Spanish and cannot make the connections in sound.
Here is the opening of a well- known Neruda poem.
"It so happens I am sick of being a man
And it happens that I walk into tailorshops and movie houses
dried up,waterproof, like a swan made of felt
steering my way in a water of wombs and ashes.
Vallejo a Peruvian poet who also wandered as Neruda did, but unlike him ended his days in exile in Paris is somehow for me a more sympathetic poet. Like Neruda and I suspect like most poets in Latin America he was a man of the Left. But his political feelings, for instance his sympathy for Republican Spain were grounded in his life among the poor, and his strong family feeling.
His first collection 'The Black Riders' written when he was in early twenties Knoepfle feels is the greatest book of poetry of the century. Here are the opening lines of the title poem.
"There are blows in life so violent-I can't answer!"
Blows as if from the hatred of God;as if before them
the deep waters of everything lived through
were backed up in the soul .. I can't answer..
Vallejo it seems writes as if to make a gift to others to help them in their lives.
In more than one poem he seems to be arguing with God.
"My God, if you
had been man,
today you would know how to be God,
but you always lived so well,
that now you feel nothing of your creation.
And the man who suffers you: he is God."
Vallejo's strong sympathy with the poor his concern for humanity is what drives his Poetry.
While the editor and translators may hype the place of these writers in the heirarchy of world- poetry they provide a wide selection and highly readable thought provoking and at times evocative and inspiring translation of their work.