Enclosed Garden: (Jardin Cerrado) - Tapa blanda

Jardín cerrado / Enclosed Garden is a compilation in four books of the poetry that Emilio Prados wrote during the first years of his exile in Mexico, following the tragic conclusion of the Spanish Civil War. First published in 1946, the contents are lyric poems that originate in contemplative experience. The poems, approximately two hundred in all, are carefully arranged to form a set of series within series that moves like a wave through interrelated topoi: loss or exile, sleeping and dreaming, resurrection or a new sense of the self. The title reflects the garden theme of contemplative and romantic poetry, and the work is rich with allusion, beginning with “The Song of Solomon” and including such medieval works as The Romance of the Rose. Enclosed Garden also contains many references to Arabic poetry and mystical poetry like that of Juan de la Cruz. The collection is both compendium of lyric modes and spiritual autobiography. The theme of the “lost garden” echoes with Genesis as well as the poet’s exile from his beloved Andalusia. The images and energies of Enclosed Garden are deeply erotic as well as deeply spiritual, the meditations of a tormented man with little outlet for his emotions other than that found in writing with insistent and often explosive urgency.

In 1937, Edna Saint Vincent Millay published her translation of a poem by Emilio Prados, “The Arrival (To Garcia Lorca)” in Spain Sings. Since the period of the Spanish Civil War, little attention has been paid to his work by readers of English. In Spain he is thought to be next to Garcia Lorca with respect to the depth of his song. In the years before the Spanish Civil War, working with Manuel Altolaguirre, Prados established the press Litoral which is deeply associated with the many authors of the Generation of 1927: Lorca, Cernuda, Aleixandre, to name only a few. Prados died in exile in Mexico in 1962. Jardín cerrado // Enclosed Garden reflects the loss of homeland and a beautiful gentleness of spirit. Donald Wellman’s poetry includes A North Atlantic Wall and The Cranberry Island Series from Dos Madres Press. In 2009, his Prolog Pages was published by Ahadada. From 1981-1994, he edited the O.ARS series of anthologies, devoted to topics bearing on postmodern poetics, including volumes entitled Coherence and Translations: Experiments in Reading. In addition to the poetry of Emilio Prados, he has translated works by Antonio Gamoneda (Cervantes Prize 2006), Blaise Cendrars and Yvan Goll. His translation of Gamoneda’s Gravestones is available from the University of New Orleans Press. His translation of Gamoneda’s Description of the Lie will soon be released by Talisman House.