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Essays, Manifestos, Statements, Speeches, Maxims, Epistles, Diaristic Jottings, Narratives, Natural histories, Poems, Plays, Performances, Ramblings, Revelations, and all such ephemera as may appear necessary to bring society into a slight tremolo of confusion and fright at least.

Aphorisms

César Vallejo

Translated from the Spanish by Stephen Kessler

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These are not aphorisms in the classical sense of philosophic gemstones cut and polished to epigrammatic perfection. They are more like thoughts-in-progress from the notebooks of a radical modernist poet trying to regain his bearings after a consciousness-shaking encounter with Soviet socialism.

In these short, pithy, subjective statements, the great Peruvian poet, author of Trilce and Los heraldos negros, explores his own thinking and poetics at an extremely important moment in his career. The dynamic tension between his own subjective, visionary poetics and a desire for solidarity with the masses energizes and haunts these writings.

Stephen Kessler is a poet, translator, essayist, and editor whose previous translations include Save Twilight and Selected Poems by Julio Cortázar, Destruction of Love by Vicente Aleixandre, and a substantial contribution to the Selected Poems of Jorge Luis Borges.