Poetry
Los senderos ocultos
Not translated into English
Enrique González Martínez · 1911
Synopsis
A collection of meditative poems, in which the poet turns away from brilliance and sonority to listen to “the soul of things” and the secret rhythm of life. It includes the sonnet “Tuércele el cuello al cisne”, which asks that the neck of the swan with the deceptive plumage be wrung and prefers the owl, whose pupil reads in the shadow, as well as pieces such as “Busca en todas las cosas”, “Renovación” or “Me abrazaré a la vida”, turned towards attentive solitude.
Context
The collection appeared in 1911 in Mocorito, from the press of La Voz del Norte, like the two before it, in the small town in Sinaloa where the author practised medicine. It was with this book that he began to be recognised. His sonnet against the swan, symbol of Darío, was read by critics as a manifesto against modernismo; the author qualified this, seeing in it only a reaction against certain commonplaces of the movement.
Who it is for
Short poems, in clear language and classical metres; no French or English translation of the collection.
Prizes and reception
The collection that made its author known, and which contains his most famous sonnet, read as a farewell to modernismo.
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