Trilce (Sheep Meadow Poetry) - Tapa blanda

Hernandez (1910-1942) was one of the constellation of poets whose virtuosity and vigor helped make Madrid a literary nerve center in the 1920s and early '30s. His later poetry gave lyrical expression to the Loyalist cause in the Spanish Civil War. It also landed him in one of Franco's fearsome prisons, where he died. Honig, a poet and author best known for his accomplished translations of Lorca, has selected a sampling from Hernandez's five collections of poetry to introduce this sensual, fiery poet to English-language readers. It's a praiseworthy undertaking: from the ardent sonnets of The Unending Lightning to the anguished defiance of his prison poems, Hernandez's poetry is muscular, soulful and formidably imagined. This valuable edition is marred in two g respects: original texts and translations should have been set on facing pages rather than in two discrete clusters, and it's disappointing to find that Honig saw fit to present only 19 poems by a poet whose stature deserves wider recognition outside the Hispanic world.--PW

Cesar Vallejo was born in Santiago de Chuco, Peru, in 1892. He studied law and literature in Trujillo and in 1917 moved to Lima. In 1921 he spent three months in prison where he wrote some of the poems in Trilce. In 1923 he left for Paris, where he co-founded a cell of the Peruvian Communist Party. From Paris, he traveled to Russia and to Spain, during the Spanish Civil War. He died in Paris, in absolute poverty, devastated by the fall of the Spanish Republic, in 1938. Besides novels, short stories, dramas, and several journalistic and political collections, Vallejo left five books of poetry. Of these only Los heralds negros (The Black Heralds, 1918) and Trilce (1922) were published during his lifetime. Nomina de huesos (Payroll of Bones, 1923-1936), Sermon de la barbarie (Sermon on Barbarism, 1936-1938) and Espana, aparta de mi este caliz (Spain, Take This Cup from Me, 1937-1938), were published posthumously.