Returnings: Poems of Love and Distance

by Rafael Alberti, Carolyn Tipton (Translation)

Winner of the 2016 Cliff Becker Book Prize in Translation "In Returnings , we are treated to an essay on the imaginative possibilities of a great poet, long exiled from his native land, turning memory into verse, recovering from the past everything that love and friendship and the landscapes that shaped him. Through alleyways and storied ruins, colors and autumn and war, Alberti discovers poetry at every turn."—Christopher Merrill, prize judge "The musical language that drives these urgent poems is echoed exquisitely in Carolyn Tipton's translations."—Stephen Kessler Rafael Alberti was one of the greatest poets of twentieth-century Spain. Poet and translator Carolyn L. Tipton teaches at the University of California, Berkeley.

Genres: Poetry

160 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2016

About the author

Rafael Alberti Merello (December 16, 1902 - October 28, 1999) was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27. Alberti published his first books of poetry towards the end of the 1920s: Marinero en tierra ('Sailor on Dry Land', 1925), La Amante ('The Mistress', 1926) and El alba del alhelí ('The Dawn of the Wallflower', 1927). This early work fell broadly into the Cancionero tradition, though from a markedly avant-garde perspective.

After falling in with the other members of the Generation of '27, Alberti began to show the profound influence of Luis de Góngora on his work, most obviously in Cal y canto ('Quicklime and Plainsong', 1929). It was, however, the introspective surrealism of Sobre los ángeles ('Concerning the Angels', 1929), whose tone was perhaps anticipated by some of the more sombre moments of Cal y canto, that established Alberti as a mature poet. Sobre los ángeles is widely considered to be Alberti's best work.

Reviews

[Helene Cardona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous poems by Rafael Alberti, superbly translated by Carolyn Tipton.

[Avel Deleon · Rating 4 out of 5]

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