The Complete Poetry-A Bilingual Edition, trans. Eshelman by Cesar Vallejo

Author:Cesar Vallejo [Vallejo, Cesar]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Poetry
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2007-01-14T18:30:00+00:00

For a reference to a racing form, see XXXV.

XLVII (page 261)

you deisland The word isla (island) is turned into a "negative" verb with the addition of the prefix des(de-), forming to desislas. Possibly based on such standard verbs in Spanish as desterrar (to banish, or exile; literally "to de-earth") and desaislarse (to come out of seclusion or isolation; to de-isolate). The sense here is that the archipelago disintegrates into the depths of the sea.

mice The word pericotes is a Peruvianism.

XLIX (page 265)

irisizes The Spanish iridice is a neologism fusing iride (the stinking iris, or gladden) with iridiscente (iridescent) to form a verb.

mashed causes The word causas means "causes" in English, too, but la causa is a puree of boiled potatoes mashed with oil and lemon. Given the food associations in the last three lines of this poem, the compound phrase in English seems appropriate.

L (page 267)

This corvine one Julio Ortega believes that corvino here is the masculine for corvine, a common Peruvian fish (known in English, too, as corvine and related to the weakfish or grouper) used in such dishes as ceviche. He bases his opinion on another conjecture, that in the second stanza mojarilla also refers to a fish (the mojarra, the same as in English). In Peru, he comments, street-smart boys are sometimes referred to as corvinos or mojarillas. The other possibilities: all dictionaries offer "crowlike, corvine" as definitions of corvine, and I suspect that the Cerberean warden in the poem is more crowlike than fishlike, and that he may evoke for the jailed Vallejo Poe's raven, as a figure of "nevermore." Also, all dictionaries list mojarilla as "a gay or jolly person," with no mention of the fish (it being listed solely as mojarra). Since we have just been told (in line 8) that the warden "jokes with the prisoners," it is possible that Vallejo intends to deepen his cynicism in the following line by referring to him as "jolly." Given the lack of definite evidence for either position, I have gone with the reading that the poem itself seems to back up most cogently.

LV (page 2-77)

Espejo was hospitalized in early 192o. He writes that when Vallejo composed this poem he was inspired by his daily visits to his friend in the hospital (87).

Samain would say Vallejo quotes from the first two lines of "L'automne," by Albert Samain (1856-igoo), which, translated by Juan Ramon Jimenez, was included in La poesia francesa moderna (1913), edited by Diez-Canedo and Fortun. This is the book that introduced Vallejo to French Symbolist poetry. Among the poets included were Nerval, Baudelaire, Gautier, Corbiere, Laforgue, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Mallarme, Jammes, Maeterlinck, and Claudel. Samain's poetry, written in a Symbolist vein, was distinguished by its melancholy tone and musical qualities. Jean Franco calls the quoted poem "a nostalgic evocation of human alienation healed by the essential harmony of nature" (109). Trilce explicitly demonstrates a rupture with this kind of Symbolism. Here is the Samain poem:

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