Apocalypse and Other Poems

by Ernesto Cardenal, Donald D. Walsh (Editor), Robert Duguid Forrest Pring-Mill (Editor)

Apocalypse and Other Poems  by Nicaragua’s revolutionist poet-priest, Ernesto Cardenal, is the author’s second book, the first of poetry, to be published by New Directions. The editors of this volume, Robert Pring-Mill and Donald D. Walsh, have chosen a representative selection of Cardenal’s shorter protest poems, epigrams, religious, and Amerindian verse. Also included are two of Cardenal’s most impressive longer the haunting and melodic elegy, “Coplas on the Death of Merton,” and the title poem, “Apocalypse,” in which the theme of an ever-threatening nuclear holocaust is the core of a modern rendering of the Book of Revelations. At Our Lady of Solentiname, his religious community on an island in Lake Nicaragua, living and working in the manner of the early Christians, Father Cardenal embodies what he “Now in Latin America, to practice religion is to make revolution.” An informative introduction has been contributed by Robert Pring-Mill of Oxford University. The translations are by Thomas Merton, Robert Pring-Mill, Kenneth Rexroth and Mireya Jaimes-Freyre, and Donald D. Walsh, who also translated In Cuba, Cardenal’s assessment of Fidel Castro’s revolutionary society, published by New Directions in 1974.

Genres: Poetry, Latinx

100 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Reverend Father Ernesto Cardenal Martínez was a Nicaraguan Catholic priest, poet, and politician. He was a liberation theologian and the founder of the primitivist art community in the Solentiname Islands, where he lived for more than ten years (1965–1977). A former member of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas (he left the party in the early 1990s), he was Nicaragua's minister of culture from 1979 to 1987.

His earlier poems focused on life and love. However, some works, such as "Zero Hour," had a direct correlation to his Marxist political ideas, being tied to the assassination of guerrilla leader Augusto César Sandino. Cardenal's poetry also was heavily influenced by his unique Catholic ideology, mainly liberation theology. Some of his later works were heavily influenced by his understanding of science and evolution, though still in dialogue with his earlier Marxist and Catholic material.--excerpted from Wikipedia

Reviews

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

• APOCALYPSE and Other Poems by Ernesto Cardenal, tr. Thomas Merton, Kenneth Rexroth, Mireya Jaimes-Freyre

APOCALYPSE dip into the Cardenal's other themes: mysticism, love poems, poems about Indigenous people, and an epic elegy on the death of mentor/friend & fellow poet-priest, Thomas Merton.

Could read this one several times and still feel like I'm only scratching the surface. Outstanding poetry.

[Sophia M · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this collection by chance at an antique shop when I was in high school. I remember being enthralled by the direct, sharp nature of these poems, the steady voice of the author throughout the collection. In re-reading it now, I’m not sure it stands the test of time so much as it is a snapshot of Nicaragua throughout the mid-twentieth century.

[Lauren Larkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely stunning and challenging collection of poetry ranging from short poems doused with broken love to political manifestos aimed at entreaty for a better world. Not to mention, the reworking of some of the Psalms. Cardenal's poetry is profound and requires the western reader to reimagine something better.