Thirty Spanish Poems of Love and Exile

by Kenneth Rexroth (Editor, Translator)

Additional Authors Include Nicolas Guillen, Pablo Neruda, Arturo Serrano Plaja, Federico Garcia Lorca And Antonio Machado.

Genres: Poetry

31 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 2011

About the author

Kenneth Rexroth was an American poet, translator, and critical essayist.

He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement. Although he did not consider himself to be a Beat poet, and disliked the association, he was dubbed the "Father of the Beats" by Time magazine.

Largely self-educated, Rexroth learned several languages and translated poems from Chinese, French, Spanish, and Japanese. He was among the first poets in the United States to explore traditional Japanese poetic themes and forms.

Rexroth died in Santa Barbara, California, on June 6, 1982. He had spent his final years translating Japanese and Chinese women poets, as well as promoting the work of female poets in America and overseas.

Reviews

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Here you are, my love, preceded by the wind
Which gushes over the blonde plains where bread suddenly
Blossomed in the warm hours
Of our first summer,
Climbing high into the light amongst the stones.

You rock in the narrow cradle of the ruins
Of parallel arches which Roman hands
Stretches around these temples and towers
Of their town, hoping someday maybe
You would crown them with your delicate steps
Of burning whiteness.

You take to yourself, in the midst of the murmuring stones,
And the sonorous bones locked away in their hollows,
The face of light rising up over the bald mountains,
The villages of faded bricks.
The burning paths, the vast drowsiness
Of a landscape astonished at the sight of you —
Rising like an apparition on the summit of the wind.

O my love, if I could only see you once more
Unawares, as in the old days,
Under that high sun which gave the hours
Of our first summer their harmony.
All that bright, luminous music which you were,
Rocking there in the cradle of ancient stones.”
—
“He seeks a profile, a material form,
A line, a color, a figure, a music,
Tangible, definite,
He seeks for the archways, the lintels
Which lead to unclouded villages,
Harmonious frontiers, precise firmaments,
Cloudless skies,
Paradises without smoke.
Under the rain the sea has vanished,
Disappeared, the sea is gone,
Has been obliterated by the fog.”
—
“What can I say about your mouth, your ears,
Your neck, your shoulders; when the sea hides its shells,
Its coral and submarine gardens,
Lest, under the wings of the South,
I compare them to you?
Your thighs are like two long still bays.
The silence of love envelops them.
They sing the same song as your arms.
It is sad to have to say this, here, far away
From those shadowy gulfs, those islands
Calling to a sail they sense passing by,
Far from its route, unseen.
My love, your legs are two beaches,
Two taut, undulant dunes,
Rumorous with rushes when they are not sleeping.
Give me your little feet to caress,
Let me know all your shores,
Let me sink into the sea, let me sink into you, my life,
Into your love, through your love, singing
Of your beauty, beautiful as the waves.”
—
“Come at dawn, beloved.
Come at dawn.

Lover, I want you the most.
Come at the dawn of the day.

Lover, I want you the most.
Come at the break of day.

Come at the break of day.
Don’t bring anybody.

Come at the light of dawn.
Come, all alone.”
—
“Against the flowering mountain
The full seas dash.
The wax of my bees
Holds little grains of salt.”