César Vallejo was born in the remote mountain village of Santiago de Chuco in 1892. He was the youngest of twelve children. He received a degree in Literature in 1915 from the University of Trujillo. In 1921  he was imprisoned and wrote his masterpiece  Trilce (1922)  while incarcerated. Soon after his release  Vallejo left Peru  never to return. He died in Paris in 1938.

Before Peru was a nation with territorial boundaries  it was a Spanish dream of wealth and plunder. The Andean region  with its picturesque mountains  people  and creatures  was a maze of mines — silver  salt  guano  nitrates — and a few gleaming cities. At one time in Europe  something splendid was called “the real Peru.” By the time César Vallejo was born in 1892  that golden age was gone  along with Simon Bolivar’s quest for independence (1808–1830). What remained was squalor  political terror  and the violence of mines draining the life from its people.

César Vallejo would seem an unlikely figure to become a notable innovator in the history of Spanish poetry and later a member of the Paris art scene. His grandfathers were Catholic priests; his grandmothers  Chimu “Indians.” The youngest of twelve children  César was raised in a strict Catholic family. Vallejo was culturally adrift  a child of Europe in education  Chimu in appearance  and Peruvian in circumstance. A talented student  he was constantly leaving school for lack of funds. He studied Literature and European philosophy  but also medicine. Brilliant and broke  Vallejo worked briefly as an accountant at the mines  a witness to the harshness of the miners’ lives and the cruelty of the owners’ peonage system. Tutoring the pampered children of the wealthy was humiliating. Vallejo fell in love in the wrong places  with the daughters of families who could see only his Chimu features. When his beloved Otilia’s pregnancy became evident  she was whisked away to safety by her family.

In 1921  life turned fully against him. His mother had died  as had several of his dearest siblings. His poetry was hooted off the stage in a local theatre. Then he was arrested as a political terrorist and tossed into prison without formal charge or sentence. In that grim setting  Vallejo translated the alienated and deranged voice of modernity into Spanish. Vallejo’s masterpiece  Trilce (1922)  is one of those eruptions of new style and sensibility that go unnoticed at first and then change everything. Vallejo fled Peru forever in 1923 and found his way to Madrid and Paris  where he joined such luminaries as Lorca  Dali  Buñuel  Neruda  and Picasso. His caricature — that sad fellow  chin propped on palm — has become an image of mid-1930s pain  of the defeat of culture and dignity in the Spanish Civil War.

Vallejo has often been compared with Charlie Chaplin in that famous pose of existential gloom. To understand what is special about Vallejo’s work  it may help to begin with a poem by the Nicaraguan Ruben Dario  himself an innovator and an inspiration to both Neruda and Vallejo.

Alla Lejos
Far Away

Buey que vi en mi niñez echando vaho un día
Ox of my childhood  steaming in
bajo el nicaragüense sol de encendidos oros 
the burning gold of Nicaragua’s sun 
en la hacienda fecunda  plena de la armonía
on rich plantation fields of tropical
del trópico; paloma de los bosques sonoros
harmony; dove of woods  with sounds
del viento  de las hachas  de los pájaros y toros
of the breeze  of axes  of birds  and wild
salvajes  yo os saludo  pues sois la vida mía.
bulls  I salute you both; you are my life.

Pesado buey  tú evocas la dulce madrugada
Great ox  you evoke the sweet morn
que llamaba a la ordeña de la vaca lechera 
that calls the cows for milking 
cuando era mi existencia toda blanca y rosada;
when all my life was white and rose;
y tú  paloma arrulladora y montañera 
and you  cooing mountain dove 
significas en mi primavera pasada
mark in the springtime of my past
todo lo que hay en la divina Primavera.
all that is of the divine Springtime.

[All translations by Stephen Zelnick]

Here is what most poetry readers expect: rhyme  easy hexameters  and poetic diction. Organized around the contrast between the weighty ox and the mercurial dove  “Far Away” is a masterpiece of compression and craft. The poem notes the loss of our “white and rose” life to a sour world of experience and assures us that childhood’s blessings are preserved in memory and in heaven’s prospect. Memory and hope enhance what seems lost  an old theme gracefully realized. Vallejo’s “Black Heralds” is otherwise:

Los Heraldos Negros
Black Heralds

Hay golpes en la vida tan fuertes . . . ¡Yo no sé!
There are blows in life so fierce ... I don’t know!
Golpes como del odio de Dios; como si ante ellos 
Blows as if from God’s hatred; as though before them
la resaca de todo lo sufrido se empozara en el alma.
the undertow of all one has suffered pooled in the soul.

¡Yo no sé!
I don’t know!

Son pocos; pero son . . . abren zanjas oscuras
They are few; but they exist ... they open dark trenches
en el rostro más fiero y en el lomo más fuerte.
in the fiercest face and in the strongest back.
Serán talvez los potros de bárbaros Atilas;
Perhaps they are the colts of barbarous Attilas 
o los heraldos negros que nos manda la Muerte.
or the black heralds Death sends us.

Son las caídas hondas de los Cristos del alma 
They are the deep falls of the Christs of the soul 
de alguna fe adorable que el Destino blasfema.
of some adorable faith that Destiny blasphemes.
Esos golpes sangrientos son las crepitaciones
Those bloody blows are the cracklings
de algún pan que en la puerta del horno se nos quema.
of some loaf burning for us in the oven door.

Y el hombre ... pobre ... ¡pobre!
And man ... poor man ... poor man!
Vuelve los ojos 
turns his eyes 
como cuando por sobre el hombro
as when  over the shoulder 
nos llama una palmada;
a tap calls to us;
vuelve los ojos locos 
he turns his crazed eyes 
y todo lo vivido
and all that has been lived
se empoza  como charco de culpa 
pools up  like a puddle of guilt 
en la mirada.
in the gaze.

Hay golpes en la vida  tan fuertes ... ¡Yo no sé!
There are blows in life  so fierce ... I don’t know!


“Black Heralds” is a harrowing poem. The images are photographically specific and erupt without structural permission: that bit of bread left smoking on the oven’s door  or the casual tap on the shoulder that reminds us of our guilt. It lacks rhyme and has no cohering design. Most shocking of all  the poem frustrates our wish for consolation. It is supposed to sum up neatly  like those honoured sonnets  with an octave’s worth of problem and a sestet’s worth of solution. Vallejo’s “I don’t know” is a blank  urban gesture  an offhand shrug. This is speech from a Beckett play: irregular  built on erupting thoughts and grim reflections. Vallejo’s urban immediacy rejects sonorous poetry in favour of an urgent voice.

“The Grown-ups” is autobiographical  naming Vallejo’s lost siblings and depicting his mother’s death as abandonment. The poem resembles a Kafka monologue  where the speaker knows the truth but chatters on to evade his fears. The line “obedient  and without a choice” sums up the absurdity. Instead of lyric lament  Vallejo gives us neurotic narrative  dark warnings peeking out from behind the child’s sweet imaginings: lollipop ships eclipsed by the horror image of passers-by doubled over in pain and “twanging” their terror along the darkened streets. The odd word “gangueando” haunts us.

Las personas mayores
The Grown-ups

¿a qué hora volverán?
When will they come back?
Da las seis el ciego Santiago 
Blind Santiago  the church bell  already
y ya está muy oscuro.
tolls six and it’s very dark.

Madre dijo que no demoraría.
Mother said she would not be late.

Aguedita  Nativa  Miguel 
Aguedita  Nativa  Miguel 
cuidado con ir por ahí  por donde
take care where you go  along where
acaban de pasar gangueando sus memorias
people pass twanging their memories 
dobladoras penas 
doubled over in pain 
hacia el silencioso corral  y por donde
toward the silent coops  where
las gallinas que se están acostando todavía 
the hens  still settling down 
se han espantado tanto.
have been rudely startled.
Mejor estemos aquí no más.
Better we stay here  no more than this.
Madre dijo que no demoraría.
Mother said she would not be long.

Ya no tengamos pena. Vamos viendo
Still  we shouldn’t worry. Let us watch
los barcos ¡el mío es más bonito de todos!
the boats — mine is the prettiest of all!
con los cuales jugamos todo el santo día 
with which we play all the blessed day 
sin pelearnos  como debe de ser:
without quarrelling  just as it should be:
han quedado en el pozo de agua  listos 
they have remained in the water pit  ready 
fletados de dulces para mañana.
freighted with sweets for tomorrow.

Aguardemos así  obedientes y sin más
Let us wait thus  obedient and with no
remedio  la vuelta  el desagravio
remedy  for their return  for the redress
de los mayores siempre delanteros 
of the grown-ups  always going ahead 
dejándonos en casa a los pequeños 
leaving us little ones at home 
como si también nosotros
as if we also
no pudiésemos partir.
could not leave.

Aguedita  Nativa  Miguel?
Aguedita  Nativa  Miguel?
Llamo  busco al tanteo en la oscuridad.
I call  I grope in the dark.
No me vayan a haber dejado solo 
They surely cannot have left me alone 
y el único recluso sea yo.
and I be the only prisoner.
(Trilce  III)

“The Suit I Wore Tomorrow” continues this drama of maternal abandonment and of hope fragmented in pain. Time disorganizes; mother becomes lover becomes god; everyday acts and objects acquire existential significance  and sentiment is dislodged from context. In place of a poem shaped into consequent meaning  we have a deranged dream  where Vallejo’s beloved Otilia Villanueva merges with the caring mother before acquiring the force of a protective god  clung to with dwindling faith.

El traje que vestí mañana
The Suit I Wore Tomorrow

no lo ha lavado mi lavandera:
my laundress has not washed it:
lo lavaba en sus venas otilinas 
she was washing it in her Otilian veins 
en el chorro de su corazón  y hoy no he
under the jet of her heart  and today I have not
de preguntarme si yo dejaba
stopped to ask myself whether I left
el traje turbio de injusticia.
the suit sullied with injustice.

Ahora que no hay quien vaya a las aguas 
Now that there is no one to go to the waters 
en mis falsillas encañona
to set piping in my facings 
el lienzo para emplumar  y todas las cosas
the linen to be feathered  and all the things
del velador de tanto qué será de mí 
of the keeper of so much “what will become of me ”
todas no están mías a mi lado.
none of them are mine at my side.
Quedaron de su propiedad 
They remained her property 
fratesadas  selladas con su trigueña bondad.
pressed and sealed with her wheat-brown goodness.

Y si supiera si ha de volver;
And if I knew whether she would return;
y si supiera qué mañana entrará
and if I knew on what morning she would come in
a entregarme las ropas lavadas  mi aquella
to hand me my washed clothes  that
lavandera del alma.
laundress of my soul.
Que mañana entrará
That tomorrow she would enter 
satisfecha  capulí de obrería  dichosa
contented  brown-berry of labour  happy
de probar que sí sabe  que sí puede
to prove that she knows  that she can
¡CÓMO NO VA A PODER!
HOW COULD SHE NOT!
azular y planchar todos los caos.
blue and iron out all the chaos.
(Trilce  VI)

The logic of time breaks down from the opening lines  as do the identities in this Freudian dream. The laundress is a sustaining source of life itself  washing his clothes pure with her blood; but she is also his beloved Otilia and Christ  who alone washes away injustices with His blood. And all this is figured  as in a mad dream out of Oliver Sacks  as a suit of clothes  a public display that hides and exposes our psychic drama.

The second stanza is clotted with the close specifics of tailoring  the speaker’s wandering consciousness unable to resist distraction. In place of anxiety faced directly  we have the technical detail of finishing work applied to a linen handkerchief. My translation simplifies terms like “falsillas encañona” (with the idea of “false or deceptive detail added from underneath”) and “emplumar” (literally “to feather”)  terms a tailor would readily grasp. This distraction cannot  however  stave off the plaint of misery  “qué será de mí” (“what will become of me?”)  the fear that the caretaker has abandoned him  a terror he cannot suppress.

The “laundress of my soul” is the source of care and abundance  the “wheat-brown goodness” of grain and the “brown-berry” fruitfulness he hopes will feed his life. The poem concludes in shrill self-assurance  not only that she is capable of “ironing out all the chaoses” but that she is ever near and ready to tend his needs. The wish  however  is bound by qualification: if she comes  he is sure she can accomplish utterly impossible things  tasks that would challenge the gods  let alone a mother armed only with iron and bleach.

For Vallejo  our inner life is devilled by uncertainty and tests our faith. We are tossed into life without cause or purpose and tormented by drives and emotions that overwhelm our efforts at rational ordering. At the heart of this cruel joke is the sexual act and the inability of men to make sense of it. Like death  any way we choose to look at it leaves us baffled. In “Vusco Volvvver” language dissolves  enacting the absurdity of mind chasing nature and stumbling about in the effort to voice the unthinkable.

Vusco volvvver de golpe el golpe.
I vant to rreturn blow for blow.
Sus dos hojas anchas  su válvula
Her two wide-folded leaves  her vavulva
que se abre en suculenta recepción
that opens up in succulent reception
de multiplicando a multiplicador 
from multiplied to multiplier 
su condición excelente para el placer 
her condition excellent for pleasure 
todo avía verdad.
all fully prepared.

Busco volvver de golpe el golpe.
I wann to rreturn blow for blow.

A su halago  enveto bolivarianas fragosidades
At her caress  to tempt Bolivarian risks
a treintidós cables y sus múltiples 
at thirty-two tow-lines and their multiples 
se arrequintan pelo por pelo
arranged thread by thread about
soberanos belfos  los dos tomos de la Obra 
superb lips  two tomes of the collected Works 
y no vivo entonces ausencia 
and live  then  neither absent
ni al tacto.
nor to touch.

Fallo volver de golpe el golpe.
Phallung to return blow for blow.
No ensillaremos jamás el toroso Vaveo
we never mount the bullish Drooel
de egoísmo y de aquel ludir mortal
of egoism and that mortal chafe
de sábana 
of the bed-sheet 
desque la mujer esta
from what woman is ...
¡cuánto pesa de general!
goodness  how much she weighs!

Y hembra es el alma de la ausente.
And female is the soul of absence.
Y hembra es el alma mía.
And female is my soul.
(Trilce  IX)

This phantasmagoria of explosive puns recalls James Joyce. The bent word unleashes possibilities hidden in the supposed reality to which language sentences us. In the opening lines  we have three words that do not exist: “vusco”  “volvvver”  and “válvula”. While Spanish is meticulous with vowel sounds  its consonants vary; the b/v distinction lands somewhere between. So “busco” becomes “vusco”  a joke played throughout the poem. “Volver” means to return  or “turn again”  so “volvvver” becomes a visual pun. “Válvula” collapses “valve” and “vulva”  an example of the poem’s strategy of confusing intimate bodily structures with machine parts. Later “Fallo” (“I fail”) implicates “falo” (“phallus”) in a stanza imagining the adventures of that slavering bullish apparatus in the “mortal chafe of the bed-sheet” — sábana (“sheet”) is also the savannah where “toro” is more at home and at ease.

The poem employs the language of engineering and mathematics  of mechanisms and machines  yet the terms are salacious and confusing — does that say what I think it says? We are accustomed to clinical and clowning mentions of vaginas  but imagine the shock in a reticent Spanish community  church-ridden and unfamiliar with our smutty frankness. Vallejo had been a medical student  and his poems reflect his technical account of the body  but this poem goes further. Here the mind stumbles in figuring the force of the sexual body and the body’s shocking reality. This struggle culminates in the speaker’s surprise at the weight of the female body. This is not a comment about hefty women but about the dislocation of the pornographic imagination  where bodies become parts and sex becomes idealized and weightless  far from the luxuriant fact of the female body.

Vallejo’s arrest and imprisonment shocked him. Although he later became an active Communist  in 1921 he was not political. He enjoyed the intellectual and artistic circles of the towns  but his bohemian appearance made him a subject of suspicion among the mine owners  who targeted the long-haired fellow with dark features as an outside agitator. When a department store in Trujillo burned down  Vallejo was arrested. His imprisonment in a dank prison  among criminals and madmen  without trial or sentence  terrified him. The world seemed accidental and deadly  and he himself frail and powerless. “The Four Walls” tells his story of despair.



Oh las cuatro paredes de la celda.
Oh the four walls of the cell.
Ah las cuatro paredes albicantes
Ah the four whitened walls
que sin remedio dan al mismo número.
that remorselessly number the same.

Criadero de nervios  mala brecha 
Nursery of nerves  evil arrangement 
por sus cuatro rincones cómo arranca
along its four corners as it tears
las diarias aherrojadas extremidades.
at my daily fettered limbs.

Amorosa llavera de innumerables llaves 
Loving jaileress of the countless keys 
si estuvieras aquÃÁ  si vieras hasta
if only you were here  here to see
qué hora son cuatro estas paredes.
what hour these four walls become.
Contra ellas serÃÁamos contigo  los dos 
Against them we would be  with you  the two of us 
más dos que nunca. Y ni lloraras 
more than ever two. And would you not weep 
di  libertadora!
speak  liberator!

Ah las paredes de la celda.
Ah  the walls of the cell.
De ellas me duele entretanto  más
From them there hurts me  meanwhile  even more
las dos largas que tienen esta noche
the two long walls that tonight possess
algo de madres que ya muertas
something of mothers who  already dead 
llevan por bromurados declives 
lead  through bromidic slopes 
a un niño de la mano cada una.
a child by the hand  each one.

Y sólo yo me voy quedando 
And only I am left behind 
con la diestra  que hace por ambas manos 
with my right hand  which serves for both hands 
en alto  en busca de terciario brazo
raised high  in search of a third arm
que ha de pupilar  entre mi dónde y mi cuándo 
that must tutor  between my where and my when 
esta mayorÃÁa inválida de hombre.
this crippled majority of man.
(Trilce  XVIII)

These themes are familiar: abandonment  the appeal to a rescuing mother  the sense of impending madness  loneliness  and the claim of being reduced to a “crippled manhood.†Several other poems in Trilce and after dramatize this helplessness  and recall Kafka’s theme of interrogation  which was becoming more than a literary trope as the century devolved into its grim politics. “Payroll of Bones†dramatizes a moment of terror under interrogation by a power answerable to no standard of reason.

Nómina de huesos
Payroll of Bones

Se pedÃÁa a grandes voces:
They demanded  shouting in mighty voices:
--Que muestre las dos manos a la vez.
--Let him show both hands at the same time.
Y esto no fue posible.
And this was not possible.
--Que  mientras llora  le tomen
--While he weeps  let them take
la medida de sus pasos.
the measure of his paces.
Y esto no fue posible.
And this was not possible.
--Que piense un pensamiento idéntico 
--Let him think an identical thought
en el tiempo en que un cero permanece inútil.
at the same time in which
a zero remains useless.
Y esto no fue posible.
And this was not possible.
--Que haga una locura.
--Let him do something crazy.
Y esto no fue posible.
And this was not possible.
--Que entre él y otro hombre semejante
--Let a crowd of men resembling him
a él  se interponga una muchedumbre
come between him and another
de hombres como él.
man just like him.
Y esto no fue posible.
And this was not possible.
--Que le comparen consigo mismo.
--Let them compare him with himself.
Y esto no fue posible.
And this was not possible.
--Que le llamen  en fin  por su nombre.
--Let them call him  at last  by his name.
Y esto no fue posible.
And this was not possible.

This Kafkaesque inquisition reduces the accused to a nameless  irrational thing before the mighty voices of power  voices that respect no standard of sanity or compassion. In “Y no me digan nada†(“Don’t Say Anything to Meâ€)  the effort of the accused to fight back disintegrates into ludicrous comic gestures.

Y no me digan nada
Don’t Say Anything to Me

Y no me digan nada 
And don’t say anything to me 
que uno puede matar perfectamente 
since one can kill perfectly 
ya que  sudando tinta 
since  sweating printer’s ink 
uno hace cuanto puede  no me digan ...
one does what one can; don’t say anything to me ...

Volveremos  señores  a vernos con manzanas 
We will meet again  good sirs  with apples;
tarde la criatura pasará 
late the creature will pass by;
la expresión de Aristóteles armada
the expression of Aristotle armed
de grandes corazones de madera 
with great hearts of wood;
la de Heráclito injerta en la de Marx 
that of Heraclitus grafted onto that of Marx 
la del suave sonando rudamente ...
that of the gentle one sounding roughly ...
Es lo que bien narraba mi garganta:
That is what my throat was telling so well:
uno puede matar perfectamente.
one can kill perfectly.

Señores 
Good sirs 

Caballeros  volveremos a vernos sin paquetes;
Gentlemen  we will meet again without packages;
hasta entonces exijo  exigiré de mi flaqueza
until then I demand  I will demand of my weakness 
el acento del dÃÁa  que 
the accent of the day  which 
según veo  estuvo ya esperándome en mi lecho.
as I see it  was already waiting for me in my bed.
Y exijo del sombrero la infausta analogÃÁa 
And I demand of the hat its ill-fated analogy 
del recuerdo 
of memory 
ya que  a veces  asumo con éxito 
since  at times  I assume with success
mi inmensidad lloranda 
my immensity of weeping;
ya que  a veces  me ahogo en la voz de mi vecino
since  at times  I drown in my neighbor’s voice
y padezco
and suffer 
contando en maÃÁces los años 
counting the years in kernels of corn 
cepillando mi ropa al son de un muerto
brushing my clothes to the sound of a dead man
o sentado borracho en mi ataúd ...
or sitting drunk in my coffin ...

The accused opens with threats  warning his tormentors with violence in an impersonal gangster voice (“one can kill perfectlyâ€). But his oration disintegrates into a clownish  baggy-pants harangue  invoking the great philosophers  back-pedalling in defense of his rhetoric  and finally admitting his own powerlessness. Faced with the force of law  of police  and of the state  the citizen has no choice but to be obedient or appear ridiculous  even to himself.

Vallejo’s complaint extends beyond social justice. Our culture fails to reconcile drives and passions  with tragic results. But there is a deeper ill: the failure of religious faith to stand against our humiliations and suffering. For Vallejo  this “pain without end†results from “being born this way  without cause.†This gentle poem of failed love runs off the rails and ends in existential despair.

Se acabó el extraño  con quien  tarde
It’s over with that stranger with whom 
la noche  regresabas parla y parla.
late at night  you returned jabbering.
Ya no habrá quien me aguarde 
Now there will be no one waiting for me 
dispuesto mi lugar  bueno lo malo.
my place prepared  for better or worse.

Se acabó la calurosa tarde;
The warm afternoon is over;
tu gran bahía y tu clamor; la charla
your great bay and your clamour; the chatter
con tu madre acabada
with your all-too-perfect mother
que nos brindaba un té lleno de tarde.
who brought us a tea full of afternoon.

Se acabó todo al fin: las vacaciones 
Everything ended at last: the holidays 
tu obediencia de pechos  tu manera
your obedient breasts  your way
de pedirme que no me vaya fuera.
of asking me not to go away.

Y se acabó el diminutivo  para
And the diminutive ended too  for
mi mayoría en el dolor sin fin 
my majority in pain without end 
y nuestro haber nacido así sin causa.
and our having been born thus  without cause.
(Trilce  XXXIV)

In this tidy sonnet  a form unusual for Vallejo  perspective shifts confusingly. What ought to be a triumph  the rival discarded  instead invites an unpleasant reflection in which the victor realizes the emptiness of his prize. The courtship is a barren charade of pleasantries  of polite tea “full of afternoon.” Even the sexual allure is obedient to recipe  as is the little drama of her pleading. Instead  his victory brings cosmic disgust.

This theme of the fierce gravity of social convention  of lost souls condemned to mechanical ritual  receives Vallejo’s comic treatment in “Height and Hair”:

Altura y pelos
Height and Hair

¿Quién no tiene su vestido azul?
Who doesn’t have his corporate blue suit?
¿Quién no almuerza y no toma el tranvía 
Who doesn’t breakfast and take the tram
con su cigarrillo contratado y su dolor de bolsillo?
with his assigned cigarette and his pocket
full of pain?
¡Yo que tan sólo he nacido!
I who was born so alone!
¡Yo que tan sólo he nacido!
I who was born so alone!

¿Quién no escribe una carta?
Who doesn’t write a postcard?
¿Quién no habla de un asunto muy importante 
Who doesn’t talk of “a very important matter ”
muriendo de costumbre y llorando de oído?
dying by formula and crying by ear?
¡Yo que solamente he nacido!
I who only was born!
¡Yo que solamente he nacido!
I who only was born!

¿Quién no se llama Carlos o cualquier otra cosa?
Who is not named Carlos  or some damn thing?
¿Quién al gato no dice gato gato?
Who on seeing a cat does not say “kitty  kitty”?
¡Ay! yo que tan sólo he nacido solamente!
Ah! I who was only born so alone!
¡Ay! yo que tan sólo he nacido solamente!
Ah! I who was only born so alone!

Vallejo’s is a familiar romantic complaint: the alert and sensitive soul  appalled at the mechanical responses of the conventional world. His mockery  however  is enjoyable  as in “Who is not named Carlos  or some damn thing? / Who on seeing a cat does not say ‘kitty  kitty’?” This is a 19th-century theme (Wordsworth  Melville  Dostoevsky  et al.)  the lonely artist-philosopher stranded among wax figures incapable of discovering their souls. But Vallejo finds a way to treat this in a crisp little comedy.

The spirit has been tricked into empty imitation; far worse  “Hope Cries Amidst Cottons” offers a chill image of the struggle for faith in a world of accident  injustice  and pain:

Esperanza plañe entre algodones
Hope Cries Amidst Cottons

Aristas roncas uniformadas
A persistent hoarse rasp
de amenazas tejidas de esporas magníficas
of menacing tissue woven from splendid spores
y con porteros botones innatos.
and with built-in porters and messengers.
¿Se luden seis de sol?
Do they scratch at six in the morning?
Natividad. Cállate  miedo.
Nativity. Be silent  fear.

Cristiano espero  espero siempre
Like a Christian I wait  I wait always
de hinojos en la piedra circular que está
on bended knee upon this circular rock
en las cien esquinas de esta suerte
in the hundred corners of this luck
tan vaga a donde asomo.
so vague wherever I appear.

Y Dios sobresaltado nos oprime
And God  startled  presses upon us
el pulso  grave  mudo 
the pulse  grave  mute 
y como padre a su pequeña 
and like a father to his little daughter 
apenas 
barely 
pero apenas  entreabre los sangrientos algodones
but barely opens the bloody cottons
y entre sus dedos toma a la esperanza.
and between his fingers takes up hope.

Señor  lo quiero yo ...
Lord  I want this ...
Y basta!
And enough!
(Trilce  XXXI)

This is a scene Vallejo  the medical student  likely witnessed in hospitals in Peru crammed with victims of tuberculosis  the dread disease that took his brothers and sister. Mentions of Christianity are rare in his poetry  but here the speaker prays on bended knee  placed on the earth  “this circular rock ” for no reason and in a world where luck always fails. He imagines God the Father plucking hope from the bloody cotton and comforting his little daughter. The prayer is terse but certain.

Vallejo writes occasionally about being a poet. In one of his interrogation poems  he threatens his tormentors with printers’ ink  his writing a weapon against madness. “Qué me da” reflects the uncertainty of his powers and his confusion  wielding his craft with only limited control  in a state of ongoing absurdity  in a middle condition in which he is only partially alive and awake and in the world.

¿Qué me da?
What Gives?

¿Qué me da  que me azoto con la línea
What’s got into me  that I whip myself with the line
y creo que me sigue  al trote  el punto?
and believe the period comes trotting after me?

¿Qué me da  que me he puesto
What’s got into me  that I have placed
en los hombros un huevo en vez de un manto?
an egg on my shoulders instead of a cloak?

¿Qué me ha dado  que vivo?
What’s gotten into me  that I live?
¿Qué me ha dado  que muero?
What’s gotten into me  that I die?

¿Qué me da  que tengo ojos?
What’s got into me  that I have eyes?
¿Qué me da  que tengo alma?
What’s got into me  that I have a soul?

¿Qué me da  que se acaba en mí mi prójimo
What’s got into me  that my neighbour ends in me
y empieza en mi carrillo el rol del viento?
and the role of the wind begins in my cheek?

¿Qué me ha dado  que cuento mis dos lágrimas 
What’s gotten into me  that I count my two tears 
sollozo tierra y cuelgo el horizonte?
sob the earth  and hang the horizon?

¿Qué me ha dado  que lloro de no poder llorar
What’s gotten into me  that I cry at not being able to cry
y río de lo poco que he reído?
and laugh at how little I have laughed?

¿Qué me da  que ni vivo ni muero?
What’s got into me  that I neither live nor die?

In his early and best-known work  César Vallejo is a morose clown  mixing his dreadful certainties of darkness with the casual chatter of everyday life. His art is compact and tense  in language impatient with fancy dress. This is no languid tea-party filled with afternoon. He does not hide his distress in romantic notions of nature and lost gardens  of sonorous language and classical evocations. We are ill-made creatures who strive for order and consequence  and both the struggle and the failure take form out there in the brusque language of the streets and in the swarm of gestures of thought that stage the interior drama of our fractured being.

In the Paris years that follow  Vallejo turns to the European crisis  his promise of Communism  and the bloody struggle in Spain to construct a human future. But that is another story for another time.

Bibliography

Brosens  Peter  and Jessica Woodworth. *Altiplano: Fragments of Grace*. Bo Films  2009. [This lovely film evokes the beauty and pain of the Andean “high plains.”]

Eshelman  Clayton  and José Rubia Barcia. *César Vallejo: The Complete Posthumous Poetry*. University of California Press  1980. [Winner of the 1979 National Book Award  this extraordinary collection rescues Vallejo’s unpublished works and puts them in good order. The translations are excellent and bold  and reflect the hard work involved in reconstructing Vallejo’s difficult language and local usage.]

Gonzalez Vlaña  Eduardo. *César Vallejo’s Season in Hell*. Translation by Stephen M. Hart et al. Axiara Editions  2015. [A novel that reconstructs Vallejo’s experiences during his Peruvian years  especially his imprisonment. Sources for these events are scant  but this powerful book is imaginative and convincing.]

Malanga  Gerard. *Malanga Chasing Vallejo*. Three Rooms Press  2014. [Malanga’s translations  like my own  attempt to make Vallejo more accessible  and sometimes sacrifice his complexity in order to offer an easier reading experience. Malanga’s work is intelligent and graceful.]

Smith  Michael  and Valentine Gianuzzi. *César Vallejo: The Complete Poems*. Shearsman Books  2012. [This is now the definitive collection and translation in English  and includes not only the posthumous work but Vallejo’s published work as well. The translations are precise and often creative. The book’s apparatus is particularly helpful.]

All translations are by Stephen Zelnick  Emeritus Professor  Temple University  with a great debt to previous translators. Join the Neruda Seminar on Facebook for continuing discussion of Latin American poetry.