Customer Reviews

The Selected Poetry of Vicente Huidobro

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Huidobro--I discovered him back in the 1970s with a bilingual editon of Poemas árticos. I am currently using the Spanish and French texts--with occasional cross-reference to the English--as an aid in a translation of the poems into Hebrew for the Israeli reading public. As I read these poems in the Spanish and French I glance too at the English and note that many of the English translation choices are imprecise or simply wrong--sometimes reflicting a misjudgment of the grammar of the original languages. More careful editing would have prevented this. HOWEVER, the editors and translators have done a service in bringing his poems to the Anglophone public and for that they deserve our praise--

Huidobro is considered one of the top four Latin poets, he is certainly the least known, but in my view he is the best. This book gives a sampling of his best works, throughout his career, translated into english. Huidobro liked to take differrent words and images that don't belong together and invent new realities. In the beginning of "Altazor" his masterpeice, he talks of his mother who had, "flag colored hair, and eyes full of distant ships."

The complete version of Altazor is also in print, although I prefer the translation in this book. The poetry within is masterful, beautiful, and unlike anything I have yet read.

"Basically I love you

you are paler than an hour and the source of myth

your eyelids alone take flight

and you're more beautiful by far

Than a return trip from the Artic"

This is not just a little book of poems. Huidobro's work, words, and ideas are the ki! nd that take root. Phrases once read are remembered, and something new is found or understood with each reading. I highly recommend this book to anyone remotely interested in poetry.

Huidobro is an outstanding poet . He gets touching the reader in the most intimate places of the soul with his poetry . To make a poem , said Borges is practise a minor magic .
And that is precisely what Huidobro reveals us poem over poem .
Please, get close to Huidobro's world and pay attention because you will be surprised by his powerful poetic level.
And enjoy this statement of V.H. : "The untruth walks with velvet steps" .

La importancia de la obra de Vicente Huidobro (CHILE 1893-1948 ) para el surgimiento de los movimientos de vanguardia en América Latina y, en general, en el ámbito de lengua española, ha sido reconocida hace ya suficiente tiempo. Huidobro es -junto a César Vallejo, Oliverio Girondo, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Pablo Neruda, Nicolás Gullén, entre otros- uno de los fundadores de la gran poesía latinoamericana de la primera mitad del siglo. Ecuatorial o Poemas árticos (ambos de 1918) se convirtieron de inmediato en modelos para la renovación de la poesía de su época en América Latina y España. Altazor es una de las contribuciones hispanoamericanas a la poesía del siglo XX. ( Federico Schopf )

Huidobro is a character. Having read most of what he wrote in spanish, I still miss a good translation of his theater plays. Hopefully made by the chilean foundation. I got a book on Neruda that was translated here in US and the name of the translator was bigger than the one of the Nobel Laureate. Not to talk about copyright issues.