In 1927, he received news from home that the tribunal in charge of his old case had given orders to arrest him, which confirmed his intuition to leave Peru. He left his post at the press agency and refused further grant payments. His economic situation worsened. By 1928, he had begun to read Marxist literature and appeared to be an actively committed Communist. In September of 1928 Vallejo made the first of three trips to Russia; he returned to form the Peruvian Socialist party with other expatriates.
In January 1929, Vallejo and Georgette Philipart, whom he met soon after his arrival in Paris, moved in together. Vallejo's Marxist studies continued, and he decided no longer to publish poetry, devoting himself instead to writing a book of Marxist theory. In 1930, Vallejo wrote his first drama. He continued to write scripts in the years to come, leaving nearly 600 pages of unpublished material at his death. Vallejo was arrested by the police in a Paris railroad station in December and ordered to leave France within three days. He returned to Madrid where, in 1931, he wrote his only novel, El tungsteno. When the Monarchy fell and the Republic was proclaimed, Vallejo officially joined the Spanish Communist party and, once Rusia en 1931 was published, was even temporarily famous. Despite his success, however, he could not find a publisher for his new material.
In January 1932, Georgette Philipart returned to Paris to find their apartment sacked by the police. Meanwhile, Vallejo was desperately trying to establish publishing connections in Madrid. Finally obtaining a resident permit in February 1933, Vallejo left for Paris with nothing but the clothes on his back. The conditions of the permit forbade him to engage in any political activity whatsoever; the years between 1933 and 1936 were the least documented in Vallejo's adult life and may well have been his darkest.
Vallejo and Philipart married in 1934, and their financial situation took a turn for the worse. Finally, in 1936, Vallejo found a teaching position, and the Fascist uprising in Spain in July of that year inspired him to a spectacular display of sustained creativity. Absorbed by the Loyalist anti-Fascist cause, Vallejo began to build a "popular poetry," incorporating war reportage, while at the same time becoming more hermetic than ever before. In July 1937 he left again for Spain, which was deep in civil war, and took part in the Second International Congress of Writers for the Defense of Culture. Among the 200 writers attending, Vallejo was elected the Peruvian representative. While in Spain, Vallejo visited the front briefly and saw the horror with his own eyes. Back in Paris he wrote a fifteen-scene tragedy, La piedra cansada, and then in one sustained push, from early September to early December, fifty-two of the fifty-four poems that make up Sermón de la barbarie, along with the fifteen poems of España, aparta de mí este cáliz.
In early March 1938, the years of strain and deprivation, compounded by heartbreak over Spain, as well as exhaustion from the pace of the previous year, finally took their toll. Vallejo contracted a lingering fever, and by late March he could not get out of bed. Despite medical attention, his condition worsened. No one knew how to heal him; at one point, his wife even enlisted the help of astrologers and wizards. On the morning of April 15, the Fascists finally reached the Mediterranean, cutting the Loyalist territory in two. At more or less the same moment, Vallejo cried out in delirium, "I am going to Spain! I want to go to Spain!" and he died. It was Good Friday. The clinic records state that he died of an "acute intestinal infection." His body was buried at Montrouge, the "Communist" cemetery in southern Paris. In the 1960s, Georgette, who was living in Lima, had his remains moved to Montparnasse, where they now reside.
A Selected Bibliography
Poetry
Selected Poems of Cesar Vallejo Selected Poems of Cesar Vallejo (1981) Antología (1948) Antología (1966) Antología de Cesar Vallejo (1942) Antología poética (1962) Así es la vida, tal como es la vida (1982) Canciones de hogar: Songs of Home (1981) Cesar Vallejo (1967) Cesar Vallejo, a Selection of His Poetry (1988) Cesar Vallejo: An Anthology of His Poetry (1970) Cesar Vallejo: Sus mejores obras (1962) Cesar Vallejo: The Complete Posthumous Poetry (1978) España, aparta de mí este cáliz (Spain, Take This Cup from Me) (1939) La vida, y quince poemas: antología poética (1958) Los heraldos negros (The Black Heralds) (1918) Los heraldos negros y Trilce (1962) Los mejores versos de Cesar Vallejo (1956)
Neruda and Vallejo: Selected Poems (1993) Nómina de huesos (Payroll of Bones) (1936) Obra poética completa (1968) Obra poética completa: Cesar Vallejo (1982) Obras completas (1974) Palms and Guitar (1982) Perfil de Cesar Vallejo: Vida y obra antología poética (1978) Poemas (1958) Poemas en prosa; Poemas humanos, España, aparta de mi este cáliz (1988) Poemas escogidos (1958) Poemas humanos (1923-1938) [and] España, aparta de mi este cáliz (1937-1938) (1961) Poemas humanos (Human Poems) (1939) Poemas humanos; España, aparta de mi este cáliz (1985) Poesía completa (1981) Poesía completa (1988) Poesías completas (1961) Poesías completas (1965) Poesías completas (1918-1938) (1949) Selected Poems (1976) Selected Poetry (1987) Sermón de la barbarie (Sermon on Barbarism) (1939) Seven Poems (1967) Ten Versions from Trilce (1970) Trilce (1922) Trilce (1992) Trilce (1992) Trilce (1973) Twenty Poems (1962) Un hombre pasa (1970) Works also collected in Poesía completa (1978)
Prose
Artículos olvidados (1960) Autopsy on Surrealism (1982) Battles in Spain (1978) Cartas a Pablo Abril (1971) Crónicas (1984) Desde Europa (1987) El romanticismo en la poesía castellana (1954) Epistolario general (1982) La cultura Peruana: Crónicas (1987) Literatura y arte (1966) Paco Yunque (1981) Rusia ante el segundo plan quinquenal (1965) Rusia en 1931 (1932) Rusia en 1931: Reflexiones al pie del Kremlin (1959) The Mayakovsky Case (1982)
Drama
La piedra cansada (1927) Teatro completo (1979)
Letters
El tungsteno (1931) Escalas melografiadas, Talleres Tipografía de la Penitenciaria (1923) Fabla salvaje (1923) Novelas y cuentos completos (1970) Novelas: Tungsteno, Fabla salvaje, Escalas melografiadas, Hora del Hombre (1948) Tungsten: A Novel (1988) Tungsteno (1958) Tungsteno y Paco Yunque (1957)
Il grande poeta peruviano, fra i maggiori poeti ispano-americani di tutti i tempi
Accanto a Neruda, César Vallejo rappresenta una delle voci piú significative della poesia ispano-americana, nonostante la sua opera non sia molto conosciuta oltreoceano. Ã? considerato il maggiore poeta peruviano di sempre.
Nacque a Santiago de Chuco (Perú), il 16 marzo 1892, figlio di Francisco de Paula Vallejo y María de los Santos Mendoza. Fin da bambino conobbe la miseria, ma anche il calore del focolare, lontano dal quale si sentiva irrimedibilmente orfano. Studió all"Universitá di Trujillo, cittá dove ricevette gli stimoli della boheme locale, formata da giornalisti, scrittori e dissidenti politici. Lí pubblicó le sue prime poesie, prima di giungere a Lima, alla fine del 1917. Nella capitale appare il suo primo libro "Gli araldi neri" (1918), uno dei piú rappresentativi esempi del post-modernismo, sulle orme di Leopoldo Lugones y Julio Herrera y Reissig.
Nel 1920 torna in visita nel suo paese natale, nel quale si vede coinvolto in dei tumulti, che lo porteranno in carcere per circa tre mesi ; quest"esperienza avrá un"importanza cruciale nella sua vita e nella sua opera, e si riflette direttamente in molti poemi del suo secondo libro, « Trilce » (1922). Quest"opera é considerata un momento fondamentale nel rinnovamento del linguaggio poetico ispano-americano, poiché in essa vediamo Vallejo allontanarsi dai modelli tradizionali che aveva seguito fino ad allora, incorporando alcune novitá dell"avanguardia e realizzando una angosciosa e sconcertante immersione in abissi della condizione umana che mai prima di allora erano stati esplorati.
L"anno seguente parte per Parigi, dove rimarrá (a parte alcuni viaggi in Unione Sovietica, Spagna e altri paesi europei), fino alla fine dei suoi giorni. Gli anni parigini furono anni di estrema povertá e intensa sofferenza fisica e morale. Con amici come Huidobro, Gerardo Diego, Juan Larrea y Juan Gris, partecipa ad attivitá dell"avanguardia, ma presto giunge a rinnegare il suo stesso "Trilce" e fino al 1927 appare fermamente impegnato con il marxismo e il suo attivismo intelletuale e politico.
Scrive articoli per giornali e riviste, piece teatrali, racconti e saggi di ispirazione propagandistica, come "La Russia nel 1931. Riflessioni ai piedi del Cremlino" (1931). Iscritto al Partito Comunista di Spagna e nominato inviato, segue da vicino le azioni della Guerra Civile e scrive il suo poema piú politico "España, aparta de mí este cáliz", che appare nel 1939, stampato da soldati dell"esercito repubblicano.
Scrive anche il romanzo proletario "Tungsteno" (1931) e i racconti di "Favola selvaggia" (Fabla salvaje, 1925).
Tutta l"opera poetica scritta a Parigi e che Vallejo pubblicó parzialmente in alcune riviste, apparve postuma con il titolo "Poemi umani" (1939). In questo lavoro é evidente il suo sforzo per superare il nichilismo e il vuoto di Trilce e per incorporare elementi storici nella realtá concreta, manifestando cosí una fede appassionata nella lotta degli uomini per la giustizia e la solidarietá sociale.
Muore a Parigi, nel 1938, in un giorno di pioggia, come aveva profetizzato in "Pietra bianca su una pietra nera", una delle sue poesie piú famose.
CESAR VALLEJO
Le premier, et souverainement, César Vallejo a brisé la gangue traditionnelle de la poésie de langue espagnole, pour retrouver ses sources, son jaillissement, sa force nue, son intensité profonde, sa brûlure.L'agonie de l'Espagne libre, que connut Vallejo (né en mars 1892 á Santiago de Chuco, au Pérou, mort le 15-10-1938 á Paris oú il vivait depuis 1932), fut également la sienne. Au delá, les survivants de l'hécatombe se souviennent de sa patience dans la mort. « Ma patience est de bois, sourde, végétale… ». Ils se souviennent, et le cri de Vallejo retentit dans tout le domaine hispano américain oú son génie est enfin reconnu.
L'auteur de Espańa aparta de mi este caliz (1938) a définitivement décapé la poésie espagnole, il lui a restitué sa proximité d'avec l'émotion vraiment vécue, il l'a plongée dans la chair même du destin humain, et je ne vois qu'Antonin Artaud pour avoir aussi tragiquement et aussi lucidement identifié le poéme et l'épreuve de vivre.
La poésie de Vallejo, dit Cardona Pena, est un « héroïsme actif » : une révolte á l'état pur, une revendication passionnée de la liberté, une conscience suraiguë de la solidarité humaine, un langage raclé jusqu'á l'os d'oú surgit la sensation immédiate et physique de la douleur, de la joie, de l'espoir, de la mort, du temps réversible dans l'instant d'éternité qu'est le poéme.
Le « Je ne sais pas… » de Vallejo ne révéle pas une attitude désespérée, mais l'incertitude désarmée de celui qui offre, et attend.
César Vallejo was born in Santiago de Chuco, Perú, in 1892, the youngest of eleven children. His father wanted him to become a priest as were Cesar"s two grandfathers, but he expressed no interest in a religious vocation. Vallejo began writing poetry in 1913; by 1918 he had his first book of poems published, Los heraldos negros. Two years later he was unjustly imprisoned for a period of four months. In 1922 he published Trilce, then a year later some prose pieces as well, and that he year he left Peru for Paris.
In 1928 he traveled to Russia because he believed that Communism could deliver social justice to the world. His writing from 1923 until his death strongly identifies with the plight of a suffering humanity. The next year he spent traveling back and forth between Paris and Spain. In 1931 he published his novel Tugsteno, the same year he joined the Congress of Antifascist Writers in Madrid.
Vallejo died in Paris of an intestinal infection in 1938. His Poemas humanos was published a year after his death.
Cesar Vallejo's Poetics.
"Un poema es una entidad vital mucho más orgánica que un ser orgánico en la naturaleza. A un animal se le amputa un miembro y sigue viviendo; a un vegetal se le corta una rama o una sección del tallo y sigue viviendo. Si a un poema se le amputa un verso, una palabra, una letra, un signo ortográfico, MUERE"
A poem is a vital entity much more organic than a human being in nature. One can amputate an animal's limb and it still lives, one can cut a plant's branch or a section of the stem and it still lives. If one amputates from a poem a line, a word, a letter, a punctuation mark, IT DIES.
"La poesía es tono, oración verbal de la vida. Es una obra construida de palabras."
Poetry is tone, verbal expression of life. It is a work constructed of words."
"El material más elemental y simple del poema es, en último análisis, la palabra y el color de la pintura."
The most elemental and simple material of the poem is, in its final analysis, the word and the color of the painting.
POEMAS
POEM TO BE READ AND SUNG
I know there is a person Who looks for me in her hand, day and night, finding me, every minute, in her shoes. Doesn't she know that the night is buried with spurs behind the kitchen?
I know there is a person composed of my parts, to whom I fuse when my waist goes galloping in its exact pebble. Doesn't she know that the coin that appeared with her portrait won't return to her coffer?
I know the day, but the sun has escaped me; I know the universal act she did in her bed with another's courage and that warm water, whose superficial frequency is a mine. Is this person, perhaps, so small that even her own feet step on her?
A cat forms the boundary between her and me, right next to her share of water. I see her on the corners, she opens and closes her robe, earlier a questioning palm tree. . . What can she do but change weeping?
But she looks and looks for me. It's a story!
7 September 1937
POEMA PARA SER LEIDO Y CANTADO
Sé que hay una persona que me busca en su mano, día y noche, encontrándome, a cada minuto, en su calzado. ¿Ignora que la noche está enterrada con espuelas detrás de la cocina?
Sé que hay una persona compuesta de mis partes, a la que integro cuando va mi talle cabalgando en su exacta piedrecilla. ¿Ignora que a su cofre no volverá moneda que salió con su retrato?
Sé el día, pero el sol se me ha escapado; sé el acto universal que hizo en su cama con ajeno valor y esa agua tibia, cuya superficial frecuencia es una mina. ¿Tan pequeña es, acaso, esa persona, que hasta sus propios pies así la pisan?
Un gato es el lindero entre ella y yo, al lado mismo de su tasa de agua, La veo en las esquinas, se abre y cierra su veste, antes palmera interrogante. . . ¿Qué podrá hacer sino cambiar de llanto?
Pero me busca y busca. ¡Es una historia!
7 Sep. 1937
QUEDÉME A CALENTAR LA TINTA
Quédeme a calentar la tinta en que me ahogo y a escuchar mi cavema alternativa, noches de tacto, días de abstracción.
Se estremeció la incógnita en mi amígdala y crují de una anual melancolía, noches de sol, días de luna, ocasos de París.
Y todavía, hoy mismo, al atardecer, digiero sacratísimas constancias, noches de madre, días de biznieta bicolor, voluptuosa, urgente, linda.
Y aun alcanzo, llego hasta mí en avión de dos asientos, bajo la mañana doméstica y la bruma que emergió eternamente de un instante.
Y todavía, aun ahora, al cabo del cometa en que he ganado mi bacilo feliz y doctoral, he aquí que caliente, oyente, tierra, sol y luna, incógnito atravieso el cementerio, tomo a la izquierda, hiendo la hierba con un par de endecasílabos, años de tumba, litros de infinito, tinta, pluma, ladrillos y perdones.
24 Set 1937
I STAYED ON TO HEAT THE INK
I stayed on to heat the ink in which I am drowning and to listen to my alternative cavern, nights of touch, days of abstraction.
The unknown trembled in my tonsil, and I rustled from an annual melancholy, nights of sun, days of moon, sunsets of Paris.
And still, on this very day, as it gets dark, I digest sacred certainties, nights of mother, days of great-granddaughter, bicolored, voluptuous, urgent, pretty.
And yet I reach, I arrive at myself in an airplane with two seats, beneath the domestic morning and the mist that emerged eternally from an instant.
And still, even now, at the end of the comet in which I have earned my happy and doctoral bacillus, here it is that heated, listening, earthlike, sun and moonlike, I travel incognito through the cemetery, turn to the left, splitting the grass with a pair of hendecasyllables, years of tomb, liters of infinity, ink, pen, bricks and pardons. 24 September 1937
Massa
Finita la battaglia
e morto il combattente, a lui venne un uomo
e disse: "Non morire,. ti amo tanto".
Ahi, ma il cadavere seguitó a morire.
In due si avvicinarono e insistevano:
"non lasciarci. Coraggio. Torna in vita".
Ahi, ma il cadavere seguitó a morire.
Accorsero venti, cento, mille, cinquecentomila,
gridando: "Tanto amore, e nulla si puó contro la morte".
Ahi, ma il cadavere seguitó a morire.
Lo circondarono milioni di individui
con una preghiera comune: "Resta, Fratello!".
Ahi, ma il cadavere seguitó a morire.
Allora tutti gli uomini della terra
lo circondarono; li vide il cadavere triste, emozionato:
si drizzo lentamente,
abbracció il primo uomo, si avvió …
Masa
Al fin de la batalla,
y muerto el combatiente, vino hacia él un hombre
y le dijo: "¡No mueras, te amo tanto!"
Pero el cadáver ¡ay! siguió muriendo.
Se le acercaron dos repitiéronle:
"¡No nos dejes! ¡Valor! ¡Vuelve a la vida!"
Pero el cadáver ¡ay! siguió muriendo.
Acudieron a él veinte, cien, mil, quinientos mil,
clamando "¡Tanto amor y no poder nada contra la muerte!"
Pero el cadáver ¡ay! siguió muriendo.
Le rodearon millones de individuos,
con un ruego común: "¡Quédate hermano!"
Pero el cadáver ¡ay! siguió muriendo.
Entonces, todos lo hombres de la tierra le rodearon; les vio el cadáver triste, emocionado; incorpórese lentamente, abrazo al primer hombre; echóse a andar… CESAR VALLEJO: THE POET, THE MILITANT, THE COMMUNIST 1892-1938
"…As of Peruvian poetry, for me, Vallejo is extraordinary. Yes, he is ours, and besides, he was a Communist," said President Gonzalo. José Carlos Mariátegui, the founder of the PCP, considered Vallejo to be "an absolute creator." Cesar Vallejo, the poet, the militant, the Communist, is being remembered by the proletariat and the people in the 106th anniversary of his birth. Today, that the Peruvian people led by the PCP are fighting 18 years of the glorious People's War, this greeting has greater significance. Vallejo, who knew how to sing and communicate with his poetry and activism with the people, workers, peasants, and students, also struggled with his cells, "his no's," "his stills," his hungers, his pieces. He struggled so consciously that this artist is inevitably a political subject to whom neutrality and a lack of political sensibility are proof of spiritual shortness, human mediocrity, and aesthetical inferiority.
Vallejo wrote: "I know more than a modern poet who usually locks himself in his cabinet to produce verses of astounding originality, masterful rhythms, sentences in which fantasy reaches formidable spasms. His life? The life of this poet consists of sleeping until 2:00 in the afternoon; then he gets up, without the least worry, or at most, yawning from peace and boredom to then have lunch with good cigars until 4:00 in the afternoon. Then he reads the newspapers and returns to his room to forge his ultramodern verses, until he feels hungry again by 8:00 in the evening. At 10:00 P.M. he is already in an artist's cafá??, joyously commenting on the sayings and deeds of friends and colleagues and by one in the morning he returns to his room to forge new wondrous verses, until 6:00 in the morning at which time he falls asleep. From such an existence as I have said, comes a work full of imagination, outpouring techniques, outshining with metaphors and imageries. But that's all that ever comes out of that sort of existence ( . . . ) The lackey and sensuous fare of the worst courtesan times is preserved in these bourgeois poets who live from a government salary or a pension from their families."
Against this kind of parasites, Vallejo rose his powerful voice and took a clear political position, which the present system's lackeys (reactionaries and revisionists) forget when they try to eschew their "homages to the death of Vallejo."
Contrasting the capitalist literary process, which as Vallejo pointed out cannot escape the germs of decadence, he hammered in the importance of the development of socialist aesthetics. Vallejo underscored that the latter must depart exclusively from deep sensibility, which is explicitly socialist, that is new sensibility. He stated: "Only a man who is socialist in the blood, whose conduct public and private reflects his ideas, who in the way he looks up a star, understands a car's turning, performs an arithmetic operation, loves a woman and raises a stone, remains silent or puts a crumb in the mouth of a passer by, are organically socialist. He is the only one able to create an authentically socialist poem. The socialist poet cannot project his ideas only at the time of writing a poem, but in all his acts, big and small, internal and visible, conscious and subconscious, and even when he sleeps and when he errs or betrays himself."
Facing the vacuum of the word and the social exhaustion of literature suffering from an acute and incurable social consumption, Vallejo highlights the most striking feature of the emerging proletarian literature, consisting of "its returning their universal social contents to words, filling them up with a new collective substratum, purer and more exuberant and providing them with a clearer and more human eloquence and expression."
Vallejo asked himself if proletarian literature would be able to achieve this renaissance and this purification of the word, this being the supreme and most fruitful form of the instinct of solidarity in men. His answer was firm: "Yes, it will achieve it. It is achieving it already."
President Mao Tse-tung held that the revolutionary art and literature are products of the reflection of the people's life in the brains of revolutionary artists and writers. He added that, in the daily life of the people, the foundations are already found of raw materials for art and literature, inexhaustible material, in its natural state, not polished, but in turn are alive, and are the richest and most basic.
The work of Cesar Vallejo is found in this perspective, which by its intensity and height shows the reality of the daily struggle for life in more universal terms, and therefore, at an unperishable level.
VALLEJO PROPOSES THE NEW REVOLUTIONARY WRITER
In an interview done years ago, Miguel Gutierrez Correa, a professor, a good writer and literary critic in Peru, had this to say about the life and work of Vallejo:
"Question (Q): Precisely we wanted your appreciation on this subject, because some bourgeois writers say that whoever becomes a militant and joins a given political organization, writes according to slogans or becomes a pamphleteer. In that regard, Vallejo stated in his work `Art and Revolution': 'The perfect kind of revolutionary intellectual is the man who struggles by simultaneously writing and being a militant.' What is your opinion on these considerations?
Answer (A): I think the bourgeois positions about a supposedly 'objective' and 'impartial' criticism, was refuted by the two greatest representatives of Peruvian culture: Vallejo and Mariátegui. To both of them, each in his respective field, their upholding of Marxism did not prevent, but on the contrary, enabled them to make a scientific analysis (a qualitative leap.) In the case of Mariátegui, he upheld Marxism due to the development of his thought; in the case of Vallejo, it was due to the renewing development of his expressive resources. In that sense, Vallejo is the rebuttal to the assertion that militancy in a Party castrates the development of an artist. Naturally, if an artist has no talent, Marxism will not make him better.
Q: There is a letter from Vallejo to Pablo Abril de Vivero, already well known, dated 1929, in which Vallejo calls for the destruction of the capitalist world, including his own self-destruction, as the only way to redeem mankind, something that he reaffirms in his work `Art and Revolution' and in `Spain Take this Cup Away from Me.' How would you frame this kind of thought in the light of the current political and social events in the country?
A: Once Vallejo upholds Marxism, he advances. And as a necessary stage of this advance, he even considers the self-destruction of his conscience, that is, of all that which represents the old, in order to assume the new.
In my understanding, two aspects characterize the times Perú is going through now: On one side, there is a general decomposition of the State, manifested in its institutions and in private life, in the social relations, and in family relationships. On the other hand, it applies to the situation of the war in which we are immersed.
Confronting all of this, of course, proposes some positions. To follow one road or the other is an option. It is also an act of freedom. Vallejo and Mariátegui opted, precisely, for that which represented the new, even when such meant a painful and even contradictory process.
We can understand better the process followed by Vallejo in the light of the experiences in the development of the International Communist Movement, in which during the 50's and 60's, the phenomenon known as Revisionism is openly manifested. What are the cultural revolutions? They are political-ideological revolutions that also work on the conscience to destroy what is obsolete, what is old, that still remains in the stage of transition to Communism; that is, in the socialist stage. This thesis by Vallejo should, then, encourage all writers to meditate, all of them, according to the situation the country is going through.
Q: In his work "Art and Revolution," Vallejo states that art is "a reflection of the economic, social, political, religious, and of all life."In light of this premise, what is your appreciation of the development of culture, of literature and art?
A: We have the famous verse by Vallejo: "Every genial act or voice, comes from the people and flows toward them." The people are the great source of all literature, directly or indirectly. I think the new culture that is emerging in the revolutionary process itself, rescues the people's values and goes on developing them artistically.
Well, we cannot all write like Vallejo. Each artist must walk on his own path. One cannot walk the same path twice in poetry. I refer to the way in which Vallejo writes. But the important thing is to follow the example set forth by Vallejo, how he transformed his conscience, and how that in turn, helped to transform his own poetry. This example can help us understand the present circumstances, and the inevitable transformations coming ahead."
Vallejo died in exile in Paris, in a rainy day on April 15, 1938. The bourgeois dictatorships in Peru did not allow his return to his homeland, nor even his bones after his death. But it is in vain, Vallejo lives in his poetry, and 42 years later (ILA-1980) the truthfulness of his message is today irrefutable: "I am like the pigeon of a condor whose feathers were stripped by a Latin handgun; like humanity's flower, I fly over the Andes like the eternal light of Lazarus …" In Spanish, "Yo soy el pichón de un cóndor desplumado por un arcabuz latino; a flor de humanidad, sobrevuelo los Andes como un eterno Lázaro de luz…," and to the international proletarian, "Workers, saviors, our redeemers, brothers, forgive us of our debts! ¡Obrero, salvador, redentor nuestro, perdónanos, hermano, nuestras deudas! Como dice un tambor al redoblar, en sus adagios: ¡que jamás tan efímero, tu espalda! ¡Que siempre tan cambiante, tu perfil!
Vallejo lives in the struggle of our heroic people, and in each battle of the invincible People's War!
THE BLACK MESSENGERS
There are in life such hard blows . . . I don't know! Blows seemingly from God's wrath; as if before them the undertow of all our sufferings is embedded in our souls . . . I don't know!
There are few; but are . . . opening dark furrows in the fiercest of faces and the strongest of loins, They are perhaps the colts of barbaric Attilas or the dark heralds Death sends us.
They are the deep falls of the Christ of the soul, of some adorable one that Destiny Blasphemes. Those bloody blows are the crepitation of some bread getting burned on us by the oven's door
And the man . . . poor . . . poor! He turns his eyes around, like when patting calls us upon our shoulder; he turns his crazed maddened eyes, and all of life's experiences become stagnant, like a puddle of guilt, in a daze.
There are such hard blows in life. I don't know!
Gli araldi neri
Ci sono colpi nella vita, cosí forti…io non so! Colpi come l'odio di Dio; come se di fronte ad essi, la risacca di tutto il sofferto ristagnasse nell'anima…Io non so!
Sono pochi; peró sono…Aprono solchi scuri nel volto piú fiero e nel lombo piú forte. Saranno forse i puledri di barbari Attila; o gli araldi neri che ci invia la Morte.
Son le cadute profonde dei Cristi dell'anima, di qualche fede da adorare che il Destino bestemmia. Questi colpi sanguinosi sono i crepitii di qualche pane che sulla porta del forno ci si brucia.
E l'uomo…Povero…povero! Gira lo sguardo, come quando una pacca sulla spalle ci chiama; Gira gli occhi pazzi, e tutto il vissuto ristagna, come una pozzanghera di colpa, nello sguardo.
Ci sono colpi nella vita, cosí forti…Io non so!
Heraldos Noirs
Il y a des coups dans la vie, si durs … Je ne sais! Des coups comme (de) la haine de Dieu; comme si devant eux, le ressac de tout ce qui est souffert se déposait dans l'âme … Je ne sais! Ils sont peu, mais ils sont … Ils ouvrent des entailles sombres dans le plus féroce visage et dans le flanc le plus fort. Ce sont peut-être les chevaux de barbares attilas; ou les hérauts noirs que la Mort nous envoie. Ce sont les chutes profondes des Christs de l'âme, de quelque adorable foi que le Destin blasphéme. Ces coups sanglants sont les crépitations d'un certain pain qui á la porte du four nous est brûlé. Et l'homme … Pauvre… pauvre ¡Retourne le regard, comme lorsque se posant sur notre épaule une main nous appelle; retourne le regard fou, et tout le vécu se dépose, comme une mare de faute dans les yeux. Il y a des coups dans la vie, si durs … !Je ne sais¡
LOS HERALDOS NEGROS
Hay golpes en la vida tan fuertes . . . ¡Yo no se! Golpes como del odio de Dios; como si ante ellos; la resaca de todo lo sufrido se empozara en el alma ¡Yo no se!
Son pocos; pero son . . . abren zanjas oscuras en el rostro mas fiero y en el lomo mas fuerte, Serán talvez los potros de bárbaros atilas; o los heraldos negros que nos manda la Muerte
Son las caídas hondas de los Cristos del alma, de alguna adorable que el Destino Blasfema, Esos golpes sangrientos son las crepitaciones de algún pan que en la puerta del horno se nos quema
Y el hombre….pobre…¡pobre! Vuelve los ojos, como cuando por sobre el hombro nos llama una palmada; vuelve los ojos locos, y todo lo vivido se empoza, como charco de culpa, en la mirada.
Hay golpes en la vida, tan fuertes . . . ¡Yo no se!
Down to the Dregs
This afternoon it rains as never before; and I
don't feel like staying alive, heart.
The afternoon is pleasant. Why shouldn't it be?
It is wearing grace and pain; it is dressed like a woman.
This afternoon in Lima it is raining. And I remember
the cruel caverns of my ingratitude;
my block of ice laid on her poppy,
stronger than her crying "Don't be this way!"
My violent black flowers; and the barbarous
and staggering blow with a stone; and the glacial pause.
And the silence of her dignity will pour
scalding oils on the end of the sentence.
Therefore, this afternoon, as never before, I walk
with this owl, with this heart.
And other women go past; and seeing me sullen,
they sip a little of you
in the abrupt furrow of my deep grief.
This afternoon it rains, rains endlessly. And I
don't feel like staying alive, heart.
Heces
Esta tarde llueve, como nunca; y no
tengo ganas de vivir, corazón.
Esta tarde es dulce. Por qué no ha de ser?
Viste gracia y pena; viste de mujer.
Esta tarde en Lima llueve. Y yo recuerdo
las cavernas crueles de mi ingratitud;
mi bloque de hielo sobre su amapola,
más fuerte que su "No seas así!"
Mis violentas flores negras, y bárbara
y enorme pedrada; y el trecho glacial.
Y pondrá el silencio de su dignidad
con óleos quemantes el punto final.
Por eso esta tarde, como nunca, voy
con este búho, con este corazón.
Y otras pasan; y viéndome tan triste;
toman un poquito de ti
en la abrupta arruga de mi hondo dolor
Esta tarde llueve, llueve mucho. Y no
Tengo ganas de vivir, corazón!
Black Stone Lying on a White Stone
I will die in Paris, on a rainy day,
on some day I can already remember.
I will die in Paris-and I don't step aside-
perhaps on a Thursday, as today is Thursday, in autumn.
It will be a Thursday, because today, Thursday, setting down
these lines, I have put my upper arm bones on
wrong, and never so much as today have I found myself
with all the road ahead of me, alone.
César Vallejo is dead. Everyone beat him
although he never does anything to them;
they beat him hard with a stick and hard also
with a rope. These are the witnesses:
the Thursdays, and the bones of my arms,
the solitude, and the rain, and the roads. . .
Pietra nera su una pietra bianca
Moriró a Parigi mentre fuori diluvia un giorno del quale possiedo giá il ricordo. Moriró a Parigi – e non mi confondo forse un giovedí, come oggi, d'autunno.
Sará di giovedí, perché oggi, giovedí, che scrivo questi versi, gli omeri mi si son messi alla meno peggio e, mai come oggi, son tornato con tutto il mio cammino, a vedermi solo.
César Vallejo é morto, lo picchiavano tutti senza che lui avesse fatto nulla gli davano duro con un bastone e duro anche con una corda: testimoni i gorni giovedí e gli ossi omeri la solitudine, la pioggia e le strade.
Pierre noir sur pierre blanche
Je mourrai á Paris par un jour de pluie,
un jour dont j'ai déjá le souvenir.
Je mourrais á Paris – et je n'en ai pas peur.
Peut-être un jeudi, par ce jeudi oú j'écris
Ces vers, mes os me font souffrir,
Piedra Negra Sobre una Piedra Blanca
Me moriré en París con aguacero,
un día del cual tengo ya el recuerdo.
Me moriré en París- y no me corro –
talvez un jueves, como es hoy, de otoño.
Jueves será, porque hoy, jueves, que proso
estos versos, los húmeros me he puesto
a la mala y, jamás como hoy, me he vuelto,
con todo mi camino, a verme solo.
César Vallejo ha muerto, le pegaban
todos sin que él les haga nada;
le daban duro con un palo y duro
también con una soga; son testigos
los días jueves y los huesos húmeros,
la soledad, la lluvia, los caminos . . .
God
I feel that God is traveling
so much in me, with the dusk and the sea.
With him we go along together. It is getting dark.
With him we get dark. All orphans . . .
But I feel God. And it even seems
that he sets aside some good color for me.
He is kind and sad, like those who care for the sick;
he whispers with sweet contempt like a lover's;
his heart must give him great pain.
Oh, my God, I've only just come to you,
today I love so much in this twilight; today
that in the false balance of some breasts
I weigh and weep for a frail Creation.
And you, what do you weep for . . . you, in love
with such an immense and whirling breast . . .
I consecrate you, God, because you love so much;
because you never smile; because your heart
must all the time give you great pain.
Dios
Siento a Dios que camina
tan en mí, con la tarde y con el mar.
Con él nos vamos juntos. Anochece.
Con él anochecemos. Orfandad . . .
Pero yo siento a Dios. Y hasta parece
que él me dicta no sé qué buen color.
Como un hospitalario, es bueno y triste;
mustia un dulce desdén de enamorado:
debe dolerle mucho el corazón.
Oh, Dios mío, recién a ti llego,
hoy que amo tanto en esta tarde; hoy
que en la falsa balanza de unos senos,
mido y lloro una frágil Creación.
Y tú, cuál llorarás . . . tú, enamorado
de tanto enorme seno girador . . .
Yo te consagro Dios, porque amas tanto;
porque jamás sonríes; porque siempre
debe dolerte mucho el corazón.
Agape
Today no one has come to inquire,
nor have they wanted anything from me this afternoon.
I have not seen a single cemetery flower
in so happy a procession of lights.
Forgive me, Lord! I have died so little!
This afternoon everyone, everyone goes by
without asking or begging me anything.
And I do not know what it is they forget, and it is
heavy in my hands like something stolen.
I have come to the door,
and I want to shout at everyone:
-If you miss something, here it is!
Because in all the afternoons of this life,
I do not Know how many doors are slammed on a face,
and my soul takes something that belongs to another.
Today nobody has come;
and today I have died so little in the afternoon.
Agape
Oggi non é venuto nessuno a domandare né mi hanno chiesto nulla questa sera.
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