Still Waters of the Air: Poems by Three Modern Spanish Poets

by Richard Lewis, Federico García Lorca, Juan Ramón Jiménez

In this 1970 hardcover book, exquisitely illustrated by Arvis Stewart, the reader finds poems in Spanish and in English translation of three of Spain's greatest Frederico Lorca, Antonio Machado, and Juan Ramon Jimenez, each one having shaped out of the harsh and beautiful landscape of Spain his vision, his passionate subjects, his poetic style. As if speaking to one another, the three poets convey their love of the sensuous, their fascination with the intermingling worlds of dream and reality, their probing of the mystery of death--and their celebration of life in poems that mirror the progressions of nature's seasons, from spring to winter, and humankind's seasons as they pass from childhood to old age.

95 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1970

Reviews

[Sandra]

OK, confession: I'm not a huge reader of poetry. But I've been reading more, because I find that when it works for me, it's profound. This is a small book of poems by three Spanish poets; I became interested because I read a poem by Antonio Machado that I really liked. The other two poets are Juan Ramón Jiménez and Frederico Garcia Lorca.

Descriptive poems with fine metaphors don't tend to move me:

The Sun is a Globe of Fire

The sun is a globe of fire,
the moon a purple disk.

A white dove perches
in a high centennial cypress

The borders of myrtle
are like faded, dusty velvet.

Garden and quiet afternoon! . . .
Water drips in the marble fountain.
(Antonio Machado)

Maybe it is supposed to evoke the bittersweet aspects of the passage of time (dripping in the fountain), and it's nice, but not something that makes me crave poetry.

The one I liked best:

THE CONCLUSIVE VOYAGE

I shall go away. And the birds will still be there,
singing,
and my garden will be there with its green tree
and its white well.

Each afternoOn the sky will be blue and peaceful,
and the notes will ring out as this afternoon they ring out
from the bells of the belltower.

And those who love me will be dead,
and the village will renew itself each year,
and in the corner of my flowering, whitewashed garden,
my spirits shall wander nostalgically . . .

And I shall go away; and be alone, homeless, with no
green tree, with no white well,
with no blue and peaceful sky,
and the birds will still be there, singing.
(Juan Ramon Jiminez)

[laurena]

I love this compilation. An old favourite so I'm totally biased but a beautiful gathering of the 3 authors works, strong, simple nature themes, seasonal feeling.

[Yamini Vaidya]

It’s a delight to read the magical words conjured by these poets, and to accompany them the surreal illustrations of Stewart. What a gift of a book!

[Priyavasanthan Pandiyan]

First Spanish read. Small but interesting poems. Muy bien 👍.

[Tammi]

Lovely.