Throughout his life, Csar Vallejo (1892'"1938) focused on human suffering and the isolation of people victimized by inexplicable forces. One of the great Spanish language poets, he merged radical politics and language consciousness, resulting in the first examples of a truly new world poetry.

The Black Heralds is Vallejo's first book and contains a wide range of poems, from love sonnets in which he struggles to free his erotic life from the bounds of Spanish Catholicism to the linguistically inventive sequence, "Imperial Nostalgias," where he parodies with considerable savagery the pastoral romanticism of Indian and rural life.

In this bilingual volume, translator Rebecca Seiferle attempts to undo the "colonization" of Vallejo in other translations. As Seiferle writes in her introduction: "Reading and translating Vallejo has been a long process of trying to meet him on his own terms, to discover what those terms were within the contexts of his particular time and, finally, taking his word for it."

from "Our Bread"

And in this frigid hour, when the earth

smells of human dust and is so sad,

I want to knock on every door

and beg forgiveness of I don't know whom,

and bake bits of fresh bread for him,

here, in the oven of my heart...!

Csar Vallejo (1892'"1938) was born in Peru to a family of mixed Spanish and native descent. He wrote two books of poetry, the second of which was partly composed during a short prison term. Disappointed by the reception of his poetry in his own country, Vallejo moved to Paris, where he became active in Marxist politics and the antifascist campaign in Spain, while publishing essays, political -articles, a play, and short stories. Vallejo died in Paris, in utter poverty, on the day Franco's armies entered Madrid. LANGUAGE: spa

Throughout his life, Cesar Vallejo (1892-1938) focused on human suffering and the isolation of people victimized by inexplicable forces. One of the great Spanish language poets, he merged radical politics and language consciousness, resulting in the first examples of a truly new world poetry.<P>"The Black Heralds "is Vallejo's first book and contains a wide range of poems, from love sonnets in which he struggles to free his erotic life from the bounds of Spanish Catholicism to the linguistically inventive sequence, "Imperial Nostalgias," where he parodies with considerable savagery the pastoral romanticism of Indian and rural life. <P>In this bilingual volume, translator Rebecca Seiferle attempts to undo the "colonization" of Vallejo in other translations. As Seiferle writes in her introduction: "Reading and translating Vallejo has been a long process of trying to meet him on his own terms, to discover what those terms were within the contexts of his particular time and, finally, taking his word for it."<P>from "Our Bread"<P>And in this frigid hour, when the earth<BR>smells of human dust and is so sad, <BR" want to knock on every door<BR>and beg forgiveness of I don't know whom, <BR>and bake bits of fresh bread for him, <BR>here, in the oven of my heart...! <BR>

Throughout his life, Csar Vallejo (18921938) focused on human suffering and the isolation of people victimized by inexplicable forces. One of the great Spanish language poets, he merged radical politics and language consciousness, resulting in the first examples of a truly new world poetry.

The Black Heralds is Vallejo's first book and contains a wide range of poems, from love sonnets in which he struggles to free his erotic life from the bounds of Spanish Catholicism to the linguistically inventive sequence, "Imperial Nostalgias," where he parodies with considerable savagery the pastoral romanticism of Indian and rural life.

In this bilingual volume, translator Rebecca Seiferle attempts to undo the "colonization" of Vallejo in other translations. As Seiferle writes in her introduction: "Reading and translating Vallejo has been a long process of trying to meet him on his own terms, to discover what those terms were within the contexts of his particular time and, finally, taking his word for it."

from "Our Bread"

And in this frigid hour, when the earth

smells of human dust and is so sad,

I want to knock on every door

and beg forgiveness of I don't know whom,

and bake bits of fresh bread for him,

here, in the oven of my heart...!

Csar Vallejo (18921938) was born in Peru to a family of mixed Spanish and native descent. He wrote two books of poetry, the second of which was partly composed during a short prison term. Disappointed by the reception of his poetry in his own country, Vallejo moved to Paris, where he became active in Marxist politics and the antifascist campaign in Spain, while publishing essays, political -articles, a play, and short stories. Vallejo died in Paris, in utter poverty, on the day Franco's armies entered Madrid.

César Vallejo (1892 — 1938) was the youngest of eleven children and born to a family of mixed descent: both of his grandfathers had been Spanish priests, both of his grandmothers native women. His first book of poetry, The Black Heralds, was published in 1918, followed by Trilcein 1922, considered a masterpiece of early modernism. In 1923, Vallejo moved to Paris, where he co-founded a cell of the Peruvian Communist Party and wrote plays and prose. He was jailed on numerous occasions for his political activities; in 1930 he was expelled from France and moved to Spain, where he befriended García Lorca. In 1932 he was allowed to reenter France. Vallejo died in Paris, in utter poverty, on Good Friday, 1938.Poet and translator Rebecca Seiferle earned degrees from the University of the State of New York and Warren Wilson College. She has been a member of the New Mexico Artists-in-the-Schools Program; a teacher and librarian at the Navajo Academy; and currently she is an English Professor at San Juan College. Her books of poetry include Bitters(Copper Canyon, 2001); The Music We Dance To(Sheep Meadow, 1999); and The Ripped-Out Seam(Sheep Meadow, 1997), which won the Bogin Award from the Poetry Society of America, the Writers’Exchange Award, and was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize; she has also translated two books by César Vallejo, The Black Heralds(Copper Canyon, 2003) and Trilce(Sheep Meadow, 1992). Seiferle is also the founding editor of the online poetry magazine The Drunken Boat. She lives in New Mexico.