Human Poems by César Vallejo
"Human Poems" by César Vallejo is a collection characterized by its politically charged themes and innovative format, primarily presented through prose poetry. This work includes a sequence addressing the Spanish Civil War, titled "España, aparta de mí este cáliz," which reflects the intense socio-political climate of the time. Vallejo's poetry intertwines personal emotions—such as hope and despair—with broader ideological concerns, encompassing the impacts of warfare and the complexities of human existence under capitalism.
The collection highlights Vallejo's distinct voice while also connecting him to the modernist movements of his contemporaries, showcasing a blend of individual struggle and collective experience. Central to the poems is the exploration of the divide between self and Other, revealing Vallejo's deep anguish over this separation. Notable within the collection is the famous sonnet "Piedra negra sobre una piedra blanca," which encapsulates these themes and evokes a sense of prophetic reflection on mortality. Through "Human Poems," Vallejo emerges as both a timeless innovator and a poignant commentator on the human condition, offering readers rich layers of meaning to explore.
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Human Poems by César Vallejo
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of World Literature, Revised Edition
First published:Poemas humanos, 1939 (English translation, 1968)
Type of work: Poetry
The Work
Including a series of prose poems elsewhere titled Poemas en prosa (Prose Poems) and a riveting fifteen-poem sequence about the Spanish Civil War titled España, aparta de mí este cáliz (Spain, Take This Cup from Me), the poetry in Human Poems is more overtly political than in either of Vallejo’s previous collections. Consequently, Human Poems offers a new and significant form of political poetry. More specifically, this is achieved through his intimate fusion of private hope, fear, and apprehension with a flurry of feverish public ideology, large-scale death by warfare, and the biopoliticization of the body. Furthermore, Human Poems starkly and meticulously explores the perils of capitalistic cosmopolitanism, and this situates Vallejo thematically amid many contemporaneous modernist artists regardless of genre.
Thus Human Poems simultaneously individuates Vallejo for his poetic ingenuity while conjoining him to his contemporaries in the arts and politics. As a result, the book paradoxically positions Vallejo as both a timeless iconoclast and a representative of his times; he is a pioneering explorer of Otherness as both a specific historical contingency and an a priori ontological condition. In other words, while his poetry most often pivots emotionally upon notions of suffering, it derives from the incommensurate divide between self and Other, both in time and place and metaphysically. Moreover, throughout Human Poems Vallejo agonizes over this divide, which repeatedly illustrates in various manifestations his despair at his inability to integrate himself into the Other and the Other into himself. An example of this is the sonnet “Piedra negra sobre una piedra blanca” (“Black Stone on a White Stone”), which is among his most famous poems. Interestingly, that poem also seems to foreshadow Vallejo’s death with prophetic vision.
Bibliography
Hart, Stephen. Stumbling Between Forty-six Stars. London: Centre of César Vallejo Studies, 2007.
Higgins, James. César Vallejo: An Anthology of His Poetry. New York: Pergamon, 1970.
Sharman, Adam, ed. The Poetry and Poetics of Cesar Vallejo: The Fourth Angle of the Circle. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997.
Vallejo, César. Selected Poems. Edited by Stephen Hart. London: Bristol Classical Press, 2000.
Vallejo, César. Selected Poems. Translated by Michael Smith and Valentino Gianuzzi. Exeter, England: Shearsman Books, 2006.