Poetry
Quiero escribir, pero me sale espuma
Not translated into English
Pedro Shimose · 1972
Synopsis
A collection of vehement poems, whose title takes up a line by César Vallejo, born of the revolutionary fervour of the years of the Torres government. Bolivia appears in it as a martyred body, on the model of Christ; poems such as "Teoría de la patria" or "Querella de gobernación" denounce North American imperialism and its local relays, in collages that mix learned language, popular speech, Quechua, slogans and English, and open onto exile.
Context
The collection appeared in Havana in 1972 and won the Casa de las Américas Prize, a year after the author settled in Madrid. It extends Poemas para un pueblo, published in 1968, in a tighter vein, and closes the explosive poetics of his beginnings: with Caducidad del fuego, in 1975, the language becomes more concise, then ironic and tender. His books were gathered in Poemas in 1988. This one has been translated into neither French nor English.
Who it is for
To read the committed poetry of Latin America in the seventies, in a Bolivian language mixed with Quechua and slogans.
Prizes and reception
Crowned by the Cuban jury, it is regarded by critics as more intense and more precise than the collection that precedes it.