What Sparks Poetry is a serialized feature that explores experiences and ideas that spark the writing of new poems. In the newest series, Life in Public, we ask our editors to examine how poetry speaks to different aspects of public experience. Each Monday's delivery brings you the poem and an excerpt from the essay.  
A man walks by with a stick of bread on his shoulder.
Am I going to write, after that, about my double?

Another sits, scratches, extracts a louse from his armpit, kills it.
How dare one speak about psychoanalysis?

Another has entered my chest with a stick in hand.
To talk then about Socrates with the doctor?

A cripple passes by holding a child’s hand.
After that I’m going to read André Breton?

Another trembles from cold, coughs, spits blood.
Will it ever be possible to allude to the profound I?

Another searches in the muck for bones, rinds.
How to write, after that, about the infinite?

A bricklayer falls from a roof, dies and no longer eats lunch.
To innovate, then, the trope, the metaphor?

A merchant cheats a customer out of a gram.
To speak, after that, about the fourth dimension?

A banker falsifies his balance sheet.
With what face to cry in the theater?

An outcast sleeps with his foot behind his back.
To speak, after that, to anyone about Picasso?

Someone goes to a burial sobbing.
How then become a member of the Academy?

Someone cleans a rifle in his kitchen.
How dare one speak about the beyond?

Someone passes by counting with his fingers.
How speak of the not-i without screaming?


[Un hombre pasa con un pan al hombro]

    Un hombre pasa con un pan al hombro
¿Voy a escribir, después, sobre mi doble?

    Otro se sienta, ráscase, extrae un piojo de su axila, mátalo
¿Con qué valor hablar del psicoanálisis?

    Otro ha entrado a mi pecho con un palo en la mano
¿Hablar luego de Sócrates al médico?

    Un cojo pasa dando el brazo a un niño
¿Voy, después, a leer a André Breton?

    Otro tiembla de frío, tose, escupe sangre
¿Cabrá aludir jamás al Yo profundo?

    Otro busca en el fango huesos, cáscaras
¿Cómo escribir, después, del infinito?

    Un albañil cae de un techo, muere y ya no almuerza
¿Innovar, luego, el tropo, la metáfora?

    Un comerciante roba un gramo en el peso a un cliente
¿Hablar, después, de cuarta dimensión?

    Un banquero falsea su balance
¿Con qué cara llorar en el teatro?

    Un paria duerme con el pie a la espalda
¿Hablar, después, a nadie de Picasso?

    Alguien va en un entierro sollozando
¿Cómo luego ingresar a la Academia?

    Alguien limpia un fusil en su cocina
¿Con qué valor hablar del más allá?

    Alguien pasa contando con sus dedos
¿Cómo hablar del no-yó sin dar un grito?
    
    5 Nov. 1937
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Cover of Cesar Vallejo's Complete Posthumous Poetry

"I don’t read this poem and think of the practical relevance or irrelevance of poetry, but I do get the sense of being both cursed and culpable from the way Vallejo renders conscious (and consciousness of) suffering. It may seem strange to say that the poem feels like a chance to notice when it expresses so much restless melancholy, but the speaker’s honesty with his doubts keeps his sense of compassion from hardening into self-congratulation."
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Head shot of Frank Ormsby

"Poems often suggest themselves, as it were, in an opening line in the poet’s head and the line often has a particular rhythm which is then likely to become the rhythm of the poem.   So, by the end of the first verse, I am likely to have a sense of whether the poem will be in free verse, blank verse, couplets, quatrains, or whatever."

via THE IRISH TIMES
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