Excerpt from Poetryfoundation.org:
“Peruvian expatriate Cesar Vallejo was a major poet, known for the authenticity and originality of his work. Deeply rooted in his mixed European and Peruvian Indian heritage, his poetry expressed universal themes related to the human condition. Sometimes called a surrealist poet, Vallejo created a wrenching poetic language for Spanish that radically altered the shape of its imagery and the nature of its rhythms.”
*Brief video of César Vallejo’s life in Spanish*
Piedra negra sobre una piedra blanca
Me moriré en París con aguacero,
un dia del cual tengo ya el recuerdo.
Me moriré en París—y no me corro—
tal vez 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 …
Black Stone upon a White Stone
I will die in Paris with the heavy rains
on a day already I recall.
I will die in Paris-and I don’t turn away-
perhaps a Thursday, like today, in fall.
Thursday then, since today, Thursday, as I prose
these lines, my forearms have begun to ache
and, never like today, as I take
to my old road, have I felt so alone.
César Vallejo is dead, they all kept hitting
him though he doesn’t do a thing
to them; they beat him hard with sticks and hard
as well with rope; witnesses are
the Thursdays and the bones of his arms,
the loneliness, the rain, the roads …
Vallejo predicted his own death in the poem above. He died on April 15, 1938 in Paris at the age of forty-six and is buried at Montparnasse.
>> See photos of what Lima looked like during Vallejo’s lifetime. <<
