Poetry
¡Oh hada cibernética!
Not translated into English
Carlos Germán Belli · 1961
Synopsis
The collection establishes the figure that will remain attached to its author: a man who feels defeated, failing and powerless in the face of social inequality, and who addresses a cybernetic fairy, his only way out, so that she may free him from what crushes him. The lament is cast in forms inherited from the Renaissance and the Golden Age, those of Medrano or Góngora, and takes on an ironic, grotesque and darkly funny tone.
Context
The collection appeared in Lima in 1961, and an expanded edition followed in 1962, the year it earned its author the national poetry prize. It came after two books, from 1958 and 1960, in which formal experimentation was mixed with social concern, and it fixes the most emblematic figure of his work. The irony of these poems will soften from the eighties onwards, when the poet turns to a calmer and more metaphysical tone.
Who it is for
Short poems in Spanish, in a language at once archaic and modern, where Lima slang rubs shoulders with the vocabulary of machines.
Prizes and reception
The book that made its author known, regarded today as one of the most important poets in the Spanish language.
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