Posted
on March 16, 2015
Cesar
Vallejo is considered by some to be one of the great poets of the
20th Century.
He
published just three books of poetry during his life – but each is
considered revolutionary!
 |
| Vallejo's most famous photograph appears on Peru's money. |
So...why
don't I know him, or his work? Probably because he wrote in Spanish.
Still, writer Thomas Merton called Vallejo “the greatest universal poet since Dante,” and poet and literature expert Martin
Seymour-Smith said that he was the “greatest twentieth-century poet
in any language.”
Vallejo's
full name was Cesar Abraham Vallejo Mendoza, and he was born in Peru
on this date in 1892. He was the youngest of eleven children, and he
was raised in a remote village in the Andes Mountains. Still, he
managed to study in a university, although he had to take some time
off, when his money ran out, to work at a sugar plantation.
After
he earned his university degree, Vallejo moved to Lima, where he
worked as a school teacher and started meeting people in the arts and
in politics. He had a tough year when his mother died, because he
lost his job and was imprisoned for allegedly coming up with the idea
for some sort of protest or political event. Later, the Judiciary of
Peru said that he was unfairly accused, but there still seemed to be
a threat in continuing to live in Peru.
So
Vallejo moved to Europe.
The
poet mostly lived in Paris, although he took several trips to the
U.S.S.R. and spent several years in Spain. He knew famous Spanish
artist Pablo Picasso, and he wrote articles for newspapers and
magazines in Lima, Peru, and also in other parts of Latin America,
Spain, France, and Italy. Vallejo wrote two books about the U.S.S.R.,
several plays, a novel, and even a children's book. After his death
(he died in his mid-40s from sort of illness), two more books of his
poetry were published.
Here
is one of Vallejo's poems:
Miguel
BY Cesar Vallejo
TRANSLATED
BY Don Paterson
I'm
sitting here on the old patio
beside
your absence. It is a black well.
We'd
be playing, now. . . I can hear Mama yell
"Boys!
Calm down!"
We'd laugh, and off I'd go
to
hide where you'd never look. . . under the stairs,
in
the hall, the attic. . . Then you'd do the same.
Miguel,
we were too good at that game.
Everything
would always end in tears.
No
one was laughing on that August night
you
went to hide away again, so late
it
was almost dawn. But now your brother's through
with
this hunting and hunting and never finding you.
The
shadows crowd him. Miguel, will you hurry
and
show yourself? Mama will only worry.
 |
| This monument to Vallejo stands in Lima Peru. It says, “There is, brothers, very much to do.” |
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