César Vallejo (página 2)

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unpublished material at his death.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.