Written in Water

by Cernuda, Luis

• ISBN13: 9780872864313
• ISBN10: 0872864316
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-07-30
• Publisher: City Lights Books

Summary

While Cernuda's verse is vivid testimony to various aspects of his biographical itinerary, it is in his prose poems that he traces more explicitly an outline of his life's journey. Reviewing this work, Octavio Paz wrote: "In these memories and landscapes, in these notes toward the history of his sensibility, there is great objectivity; the poet doesn't set out to fantasize, or to lie to himself or anyone else. He attempts only to illuminate, with an almost impersonal light, something very personal: a few moments in his life. But is it truly ours, this life we live?" Luis Cernuda (1902a__1963) was one of the leading poets of Spain's Generation of 1927, which included Federico Garcia Lorca, Rafael Alberti and Jorge Guillen.

Table of Contents

Translator's Preface	xi
Ocnos	1	(2)
Poetry	3	(1)
Nature	4	(1)
Autumn	5	(1)
The Piano	6	(1)
Eternity	7	(1)
The Nursery	8	(2)
Fear	10	(2)
The Bazaar	12	(1)
Time	13	(1)
Street Cries	14	(2)
The Poet and the Myths	16	(1)
Scandal	17	(1)
Summer Mornings	18	(2)
Vice	20	(2)
Hidden Beauty	22	(1)
The Cathedral and the River	23	(2)
Ancient Garden	25	(2)
The Poet	27	(2)
Pleasure	29	(2)
The Magnolia	31	(1)
The City from a Distance	32	(2)
The Teacher	34	(2)
The Flood	36	(2)
The Journey	38	(2)
The Smitten	40	(2)
Evening	42	(1)
Jose Maria Izquierdo	43	(2)
Music and the Night	45	(1)
Walled Convent	46	(1)
Nighttime Sorcery	47	(1)
Destiny	48	(2)
Shadows	50	(2)
The Shops	52	(2)
Music	54	(1)
The Sea	55	(1)
Learning to Forget	56	(2)
Summer	58	(1)
The Lover	59	(1)
City on the Plateau	60	(1)
Saint	61	(2)
The Storm	63	(2)
War and Peace	65	(1)
Panther	66	(1)
Love	67	(1)
Caledonia City	68	(1)
River	69	(1)
The Blackbird	70	(1)
The Heath	71	(2)
Library	73	(1)
The Old Women	74	(2)
Ways of Living	76	(2)
Spring	78	(1)
Snow	79	(2)
Light	81	(1)
Solitude	82	(1)
The Park	83	(2)
The Bells	85	(2)
The Arrival	87	(2)
Helen	89	(2)
Home	91	(2)
Return to Darkness	93	(2)
Silent Call	95	(2)
Harmony	97	(2)
Variations on a Mexican Theme	99	(2)
The Theme	101	(2)
Variations	103	(2)
The Language	105	(2)
Miravalle	107	(1)
Dignity and Repose	108	(1)
Country Musicians	109	(1)
What's Ours	110	(1)
Waterborne	111	(1)
The Sidewalk	112	(1)
Flower Vendors	113	(1)
The Overlook	114	(1)
The Image	115	(2)
The People	117	(2)
Wasting Time	119	(1)
Unusual Sunset	120	(1)
The Churches	121	(2)
Doing Nothing	123	(2)
Death's Toys	125	(2)
Eyes and the Voice	127	(2)
The Magic Grotto	129	(2)
Duet	131	(2)
A Garden	133	(2)
The Market	135	(2)
Property	137	(2)
The Patio	139	(1)
Daybreak in the Gulf	140	(1)
Possession	141	(2)
The Indian	143	(1)
A Man's Center	144	(2)
Empty Shell	146	(2)
Return	148	(2)
Summing Up	150	(3)
Coda	153	(2)
Written in Water	155