Poetry
Fantasmas y enfermedades
Not translated into English
Francisco Pérez Perdomo · 1961
Synopsis
Seventeen poems. The speaker lives in the suburbs and remote districts and walks at night in parks, streets and theatres; around him prowl ghosts, spectres, monsters, goblins and sinister beasts, and he listens to messages whose riddle he tries to decipher. Illnesses, of body and mind, form the other great threat and draw him toward destruction. The title thus announces two planes, the world of things and a supernatural, magical and sick world, which the poem “Hombre dividido” shares between an angel and a demon.
Context
The collection appeared in Caracas in 1961 under the imprint of Sardio; several poems had first appeared in the Papel Literario of El Nacional and in the group's journal. According to Prodavinci, this imaginary comes from childhood in Boconó, a town lit by gas lamps and full of ghost stories; critics link the work to José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Kafka, Michaux, Poe and Lovecraft. It is the first book of a body of work devoted to the fantastic and the nocturnal, which its author continued over thirteen collections.
Who it is for
A first collection of seventeen poems, in Spanish, with no French translation; the apparitions arrive without preparation.
Prizes and reception
A Colombian critic praised, on its publication, the rigour of its self-criticism and announced a promising poet.
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