Yes, Alison!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I agree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
and this is an illustration of entirely too many exclamation marks. However, there are not too many in Vallejo, or rather there are as many as there should be. For example, this poem, later in the book:
Fresco
I came to confuse myself with her
so much...! Through her spiritual turns,
I kept right on playing
among tender strawberry patches,
between her matinal, grecian hands.
Afterwards, she'd arrange the black
bohemian knots of my scarf. And I
would go back to watching the stone absorbed
in thought, the graceless benches, and the clock
that was winding us in its spool,
to the stroke of its interminable wheel.
Those former good nights,
that today only make her laugh
at my strange way of dying,
my pensive way of rambling.
Sugar pastes of gold,
bridal jewels of sugar,
that, in the end, are crushed by
the gravestone mortar of this world.
But to the tears of love,
the stars are lovely, little handkerchiefs,
lilacs,
oranges,
greens,
that the heart soaks up.
And if now, there's so much bitterness in these silks,
there's a tenderness that is never born,
that never dies, it lets fly
another great, apocalyptic handkerchief,
the blue, unedited, hand of God!
There are only two exclamations in the original, at the end, and in that broken breath of the first line, both of which are, as you say, "breaths of intoxication" and 'punctive explosions." Both of which phrases I like very much.
I think the question is the individual poem, and, as always I am more inclined to think Vallejo knew what he meant, rather than someone with a general idea of the normatives of Spanish poetry.
He himself was very un-normative.
Best,
Rebecca
Rebecca Seiferle
www.thedrunkenboat.com
-------Original Message-------
From: Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 04/20/03 02:53 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: C??sar Vallejo and Rebecca Seiferle
>
> At 3:08 AM +0100 4/20/03, david.bircumshaw wrote:
> I like your
>use of the term 'normative', that's to the nub.
Aye, there's the rub. I have a lot of problems with normatives,
myself: pesky little oughts. But as a confessed un-normative, I
should miss those punctive explosions, if they were edited out; they
seem as much of the poetry as Emily Dickinson's hyphens seem part of
hers. They are the breaths of intoxication.
Best
A
--
Alison Croggon
Editor
Masthead Online
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