Prison Poems, The , livre ebook

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207 pages

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THE PRISON POEMS is the first complete translation into English of Miguel Hernández’s Cancionero y romancero de ausencias, a classic of 20th century Spanish poetry, comparable in many respects to the work of Lorca and Pablo Neruda. The poems in this book were mostly written while he was in prison after the defeat of Republican Spain.

Sujets

Romance

Poetry

Literary Criticism

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Publié par	Parlor Press, LLC
Date de parution	21 novembre 2008
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781602359888
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0000€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Free Verse Editions
Edited by Jon Thompson
2008
Quarry by Carolyn Guinzio
Between the Twilight and the Sky by Jennie Neighbors
The Prison Poems by Miguel Hernández,
translated by Michael Smith
remanence by Boyer Rickel
What Stillness Illuminated by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub
2007
Child in the Road by Cindy Savett
Verge by Morgan Lucas Schuldt
The Flying House by Dawn-Michelle Baude
2006
Physis by Nicolas Pesque, translated by Cole Swensen
Puppet Wardrobe by Daniel Tiffany
These Beautiful Limits by Thomas Lisk
The Wash by Adam Clay
2005
A Map of Faring by Peter Riley
Signs Following by Ger Killeen
Winter Journey [Viaggio d’inverno] by Attilio Bertolucci,
translated by Nicholas Benson

The Prison Poems
Miguel Hernández
Translated & Introduced
by
Michael Smith
Parlor Press
West Lafayette, Indiana
www.parlorpress.com

Parlor Press LLC, West Lafayette, Indiana 47906
Translation and Introduction © 2008 by Parlor Press & Michael Smith. Spanish text Cancionero y romancero de ausencias © 1976 Heirs of Miguel Hernández. Used by permission.
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hernández, Miguel, 1910-1942
[Cancionero y romancero de ausencias. English]
The prison poems / Miguel Hernandez ; translated & introduced by Michael Smith.
p. cm. -- (Free verse editions)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-60235-090-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-091-5 (adobe ebook)
1. Hernández, Miguel, 1910-1942--Translations into English. I. Smith, Michael, 1942 Sept. 1- II. Title.
PQ6615.E57C2813 2008
861’.62--dc22
2008048384
Printed in the United States of America
S A N: 2 5 4 - 8 8 7 9
Printed on acid-free paper.
Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats. This book is available in paper and Adobe eBook formats from Parlor Press on the World Wide Web at http://www.parlorpress.com or through online and brick-and-mortar bookstores. For submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications, write to Parlor Press, 8 1 6 Robinson St., West Lafayette, Indiana, 47906, or e-mail editor@parlorpress.com.

Contents
Miguel Hernández: A Poet of the People
A CANCIONERO Y ROMANCERO DE AUSENCIAS
A SONGBOOK AND BALLADBOOK OF ABSENCES
VALS DE LOS ENAMORADOS Y UNIDOS HASTE SIEMPRE
WALTZ OF THE LOVERS UNITED FOREVER
VIDA SOLAR
SOLAR LIFE
A MI HIJO
TO MY SON
ORILLAS DE TU VIENTRE
THE SHORES OF YOUR WOMB
HIJO DE LA LUZ Y DE LA SOMBRA
(HIJO DE LA SOMBRA)
SON OF THE LIGHT AND DARKNESS
(SON OF DARKNESS)
(HIJO DE LA LUZ)
(SON OF LIGHT)
(HIJO DE LA LUZ Y DE LA SOMBRA)
(SON OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS)
(LA LLUVIA)
THE RAIN
ANTES DEL ODIO
BEFORE HATING
LA BOCA
THE MOUTH
ASCENSIÓN DE LA ESCOBA
DESPUÉS DEL AMOR
ASCENT OF THE BROOM
AFTER LOVE
GUERRA
WAR
NANAS DE LA CEBOLLA
LULLABIES OF THE ONION
B
CANCIONERO DE AUSENCIAS
B
SONGBOOK OF ABSENCES
C
OTROS POEMAS DEL CICLO (I)
C
OTHER POEMS OF THE CYCLE (I)
EL ÚLTIMO RINCÓN
THE LAST CORNER
CANTAR
SONG
CASIDA DEL SEDIENTO
CASIDA OF THIRST
D
OTROS POEMAS DEL CICLO (II)
TODO ERA AZUL
SONREÍR CON LA ALEGRE TRISTEZA DEL OLIVO
D
OTHER POEMS OF THE CYCLE (II)
EVERYTHING WAS BLUE
SMILING WITH THE HAPPY SADNESS OF THE OLIVE TREE
YO NO QUIERO MÁS LUZ QUE TU CUERPO ANTE EL MÍO
I WANT NO MORE LIGHT THAN YOUR BODY FACING MINE
19 DE DICIEMBRE DE 1937
DECEMBER 19, 1937
MUERTE NUPCIAL
NUPTIAL DEATH
EL NIÑO DE LA NOCHE
CHILD OF THE NIGHT
EL HOMBRE NO REPOSA…
SIGO EN LA SOMBRA, LLENO DE LUZ: ¿EXISTE EL DÍA?
MAN DOES NOT REST …
I STAY IN THE DARK, FULL OF LIGHT: DOES DAY EXIST?
VUELO
FLIGHT
SEPULTURA DE LA IMAGINACIÓN
BURIAL OF THE IMAGINATION
ETERNA SOMBRA
EVERLASTING DARK
E
CASA CERRADA
E
POEMS REJECTED FROM THE SONGBOOK OF ABSENCES
CLOSED HOUSE
MI CUERPO
MY BODY
About the Translator

Miguel Hernández: A Poet of the People
Michael Smith
An Introduction
The development of the poetry of Miguel Hernández, from its first book publication in Perito en lunas ( Skilled in Moons , 1933) to his final poems collected in Cancionero y romancero de ausencias ( Song and Ballad Book of Absences , 1938–1941), traces, in an extraordinary parallelism, the development of the man’s sociopolitical concerns. In broad outline, that development is from a politically naive pastoralism, Perito en lunas , and love poetry, El rayo que no cesa ( Unceasing Lightning ), to an intensely political, even propagandist poetry, Viento del pueblo ( Wind of The People ), and then on to the final poems which ponder the meaning of the individual caught up in a huge and complex social and political upheaval (the Spanish Civil War). The poetic achievement of Hernández, it seems to me, lies in his winning through all the various purposes to which he devoted his poetic talent, and persisting to achieve the profound expression of an individualism that was tortured by the social and political concerns from which his humanity could not turn away.
Hernández’s background is of considerable importance in understanding the development of his social concerns. He was born on October 30 in 1910 in the town of Orihuela in the province of Alicante. His father was a small-time goat-herd and dealer in goats and other livestock; a tough individual, he was strict and authoritarian. Hernández’s mother was a quiet and affectionate woman who, as best she could, softened her husband’s harsh domestic regime.
From childhood Hernández had to play his part in tending the goats in the fields and sierras of Orihuela. Thus early, direct and intimate contact with the world of nature, of animals and plants and weather, and their interactions, left an indelible impression on him. As he expressed this in his second book of poems, El rayo que no cesa:
Me llamo barro aunque Miguel me llame.
Barro es mi profesión y mi destino:
que mancha con su lengua cuanto lame.
[I am called clay though my name is Miguel.
Clay is my profession and my destiny:
it stains with its tongue whatever it licks.]
This identification of himself with the organic world of nature was to provide an emotional basis for his identification with the broad mass of humanity which lived, especially in the Spain of his time, so close to that world of nature. Hernández had an intimate relationship with the natural world and in his work he often celebrated what he saw as the majesty of nature and he passionately observed its countless mysteries. In one of his early poems ‘Canto exaltado de amor a la naturaleza’ (‘Exalted Love Song to Nature’) he refers to nature as fontana de belleza (‘fountain of beauty’). Hernández had a deep and lasting connection with his native soil:
En mi tierra moriré
entre la raíz y el grano
que es tan mía por la mano
como mía por el pie
[I shall die in my land
among the root and the grain
which is as much mine by its hand
as it’s mine by its foot.]
Spain in Hernández’s time was predominantly a peasant society, with countless peasants living in a sort of feudal serfdom. The Irish poet, Patrick Kavanagh, has defined the ‘peasant’ as ‘someone who lives below a certain threshold of consciousness’. Although Kavanagh unfortunately never went on to define what he understood as that level of consciousness, one can guess that what he meant was individual consciousness, that sense of being oneself, of being different and unique, the cherished concept of bourgeois life. Hernández, however, was able to identify with the Spanish peasant on a profoundly spiritual level:
Me vistió la pobreza,
me lamió el cuerpo el río
y del pie a la cabeza
pasto fui del rocío.
[Poverty dressed me,
the river lapped my body
and from foot to head
I was pasture of the dew.]
Hernández was not so much a political poet as a poet deeply concerned with social justice. He had an enlightened and active social conscience which led him very often to contemplate social problems, particularly those which affected Spain’s rural labourers. He was a man of the people, always placing the needs of the poor and oppressed before the demands of any ambitious political organization or party. In his poetry he glorifies the worker and extols the virtues of honest, hard work:
Se tomará un descanso el hortelano
y entenderá sus penas combatido
por el salubre sol y el tiempo manso.
Y otra vez, inclinando cuerpo y mano
seguirá ante la tierra perseguido
por la sombra del último descanso.
[The gardener will take his rest
and he will understand his pains, beaten
by the healthful sun and mild weather.
And again, inclining his body and hand
he will press on before the earth, pursued
by the shadow of his final rest.]
He sees wor