Poetry
La colina del pájaro rojo
Not translated into English
Emilio Oribe · 1925
Synopsis
About twenty poems written in the countryside of Santa Lucía and San José. One celebrates geometry, order and harmony; another follows the long curves of the hills and plains, a land still without writing that awaits its poets. One Sunday morning, the sun is praised even in the plough and the village bells; in the midst of drought, a small tropical bird crosses the fields, and the poet speaks to it as to the very poetry of America. The things of the landscape count there as signs of an ideal.
Context
The poems were written from 1922 to 1925 between Montevideo, Santa Lucía and San José de Mayo, where the author taught philosophy and worked in a psychiatric hospital. The book was published in 1925 in Montevideo, by the Agencia General de Librería y Publicaciones, in 152 pages. Juana de Ibarbourou, a childhood friend of the author, hailed it in July 1925 as an event in American poetry; one critic speaks of an indirect nativism. The collection was reissued in 2024 in the series of Uruguayan classics, with a prologue by Hebert Benítez Pezzolano.
Who it is for
A short collection in Spanish, of dense metaphysical thought; no French translation.
Prizes and reception
Counted among its author's most critically acclaimed books; reissued in 2024 among the Uruguayan classics.
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