Small Hours of the Night: Selected Poems

by Roque Dalton, James Graham (Translator), Paul Pines (Translator)

Selected from 10 of his collections and two posthumous manuscripts,  Small Hours of the Night  is an English-only edition of the poems of Salvadorian revolutionary Roque Dalton. Written from exile and in prison, Dalton's work deftly balances love, death, revolution, and politics, with compelling language and seductive verse. The volume includes introductory essays by Dalton's friends and Ernesto Cardenal, Claribel Alegría, and Hardie St. Martin. 

Genres: Poetry

228 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Roque Dalton was born on May 14, 1935, in San Salvador, El Salvador. His father was one of the members of the outlaw Dalton brothers and his mother was a registered nurse whose salary supported the family. After a year at the University of Santiago, Chile, Roque Dalton attended the University of San Salvador in 1956, where he helped found the University Literary Circle just before the Salvadoran military set fire to the building. The following year he joined the Communist Party; he was arrested in 1959 and 1960 for inciting students and peasants to revolt against the landowners. Dalton was sentenced to be executed, but his life was saved the day before his sentence was to be carried out, when the dictatorship of Colonel José María Lemus was overthrown. He spent 1961 in Mexican exile, writing many of the poems that were published in La Ventana en el rostro ("The Window in My Face," 1961) and El turno del ofendido ("The Injured Party's Turn," 1962). He dedicated the latter book to the Salvadoran police chief who had filed the charges against him.

From Mexico, Dalton naturally gravitated to Cuba, where he was well received by the Cuban and Latin American exiled writers who gathered in the Casa de las Américas. From that point on, starting with La Ventana en el rostro and El Mar ("The Sea") in 1962, almost all of his poetic work was published in Cuba. In the summer of 1965, he returned to El Salvador to continue his political work. Two months after his arrival, he was arrested, tortured, and again sentenced to execution. However, he managed to escape death once more when an earthquake shattered the outer wall of his cell, enabling him to dig his way out through the rubble.

He returned to Cuba and a few months later the Communist Party sent him to Prague as a correspondent for The International Review: Problems of Peace and Socialism. His book Taberna y ostros lugares ("Tavern and Other Places"), reflecting his long stay in Prague, won the Casa de las Américas poetry prize in 1969 and established Roque Dalton, at the age of thirty-four, as one of the best young poets in Latin America. In 1975, a military faction of the Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP), unjustly accused him of trying to divide their organization and condemned him to death. They executed him on May 10, 1975, four days before his fortieth birthday.

Reviews

[Marissa and her goodreads spam · Rating 4 out of 5]

LOVE

Love is my other country
the primary one
not the one I’m proud of
the one I suffer

i felt as if this summed up the theme of the collection pretty well.

[Steven Godin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mine would be a great death

My sins would glow like ancient jewels
with the delicious iridescence of venom

Aromas of all kinds would flower from my grave
teenage versions of my greatest joys
my secret words of sorrow

Maybe someone will say that I was loyal or good
but only you will remember
the way I looked into your eyes

[Efad · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Politics are taken up at the risk of life
or else you don't talk about it. Of course
you can take them up without risking
your life
but we figured that this was only in the enemy camp."
—Roque Dalton

[Natalie]

I wasn’t the biggest fan of these poems. Something something leftist men still have a misogyny problem blah blah. But there is a remarkable current in these poems where Roque Dalton is balancing his love for life with his hope for a just world. There is a desperate quality to them, where the difficulties of revolution stand in the way of him just observing his fellow man. (I’m unsure how he would feel about the comparison, but I think he shares a style with Allen Ginsberg’s work)

I see the shiny little cross on your chest
my photo of Marx on the wall
and think that despite everything life is sweet.

I think I’d be far more interested in reading a biography about Roque Dalton, though as this introduction mentions, much of his life, like Miguel Mármol, is shrouded in myth.

Adding one more quote that made me lol:

I SOLVED THE PROBLEM OF ETERNITY ONCE AND FOR ALL.
THEOLOGIANS ARE AN AWFUL BUNCH OF FREAKS:
THE ANSWER TO THE PROBLEM OF ETERNITY
IS A MATTER OF ASKING OVER AND OVER: AND THEN WHAT?

[jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

the great salvadoran poet. if you can find them, azul editions published two slim volumes one isn't born a leninist and 35 poems that are also well worth checking out.

"poetry
forgive me for helping you understand
that you're not made of words alone."

i shall be forever indebted to a man named chris, a man whose exuberance for poetry is unequaled, for turning me on to dalton (and so many other of the world's finest poets), whom i may never have discovered were it not for his guidance. a thank you would be redundant.

vanity

mine would be a great death

my sins would glow like ancient jewels
with the delicious iridescence of venom

aromas of all kinds would flower from my grave
teenage versions of my greatest joys
my secret words of sorrow

maybe someone will say that i was loyal or good
but only you will remember
the way i looked into your eyes

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of poems by a Salvadoran revolutionary communist. He has quickly become one of my favorite poets!

[Karlo Mikhail · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some notably beautiful poems alongside a motley of nonsensical verses.