It’s the birthday of one of the most important poets of the past century, Peruvian poet César Vallejo (1892 – 1938). While relatively unknown during his lifetime, today he is revered for his radical innovations and for the way his “wrenched syntax” so immediately expresses human suffering.

Vallejo was the youngest of 11 children, born and raised in Santiago de Chuco, an isolated village in the Andes, and had a close relationship with his family. Both parents were a mix of Spanish and Quechua Indian; in fact, both his grandmothers were Indian, and both grandfathers were Spanish priests, so…<awkward pause while that sinks in.> After secondary school, he left the security of family and rural life behind and (spoiler alert) from then on out life got harder and harsher and bleaker and like that. His studied at Trujillo University off and on, struggling financially, finally finishing a master’s in Spanish literature in 1915 and then embarking on law studies. A traumatic love affair drove him to move to Lima, where his first book of poetry, Los heraldos negros (The Black Messengers), was published in 1919. He already showed signs of outgrowing the poetic conventions of the modernista movement (marked by its emphasis on language’s melodic nature).

Things worsened: Vallejo’s mother died, more love affair trauma ensued, and during a visit to his hometown he was falsely accused of instigating a political insurrection. He was jailed for about three months, suffered greatly, and in 1922 published his second book of poetry, Trilce. In this book he began wrenching his syntax (so to speak) and using language in completely novel ways, beginning with the book’s title, which is a made-up word that critics still debate today. Vallejo moved to Paris in 1923 and never returned home again due to the threat of arrest.

For a time he was truly a starving artist. He wrote articles and got grant money from the Spanish government to study law at the University of Madrid, which somehow he managed to do from Paris even though as far as I know nothing was offered online in those days. At the same time he was becoming a committed Marxist, though he was evidently always ambivalent and envied those who were more single-minded. In 1930, Paris said, “Enough of your weird political leanings,” and kicked him out, so he went to Madrid and wrote his only novel there (El tungsteno, 1931). He was eventually allowed to return to Paris but then spent two years in Spain during the Spanish Civil War (1936 – 1939). The horrors he witnessed inspired him to write a great many poems in just the last few months of 1937. In March of 1938 he came down with a mysterious fever (possibly malaria), and, exhausted physically and emotionally, died on April 15. He left behind a widow, Georgette. His final poems were published posthumously in the collection, Poemas humanos (“Human Poems,” 1939) and are held to be his best work.

My knowledge of Vallejo (prior to writing this post) is rivaled only by my knowledge of 19th century French history (see February 26, 2018). But the reason I now want to read Vallejo is that by all accounts, his poetry is marked not only by its struggle with human suffering but by its great, hard-won compassion. I leave you with the opening lines of a poem he wrote in memory of his brother (read the entire poem here):

Memoriam

Brother, today I sit on the brick bench outside the house,

where you make a bottomless emptiness.

I remember we used to play at this hour of the day, and mama

would calm us: “There now, boys…”

Have a lovely Friday, show compassion, and stay scrupulously honest to the data.