Poetry
Poemas montevideanos
Not translated into English
Emilio Frugoni · 1923
Synopsis
Thirty-six poems on everyday life in Montevideo, with no heroes and no battles. The city appears as a large village of flat roofs, caught in telephone wires as if under a pantry cover; we pass through Plaza de la Constitución, its cathedral and its benches, through the central cemetery, through Paso Molino or the Prado, we take the Northern tram, we enter a conventillo or the prostitution quarter. An emigrant ship leaves the port, weighed down with the memories of those who depart.
Context
The collection appeared in Montevideo in 1923, from M. García, after seven years without a book of verse from its author. It turns its back on epic and national heroes in favour of almost photographic descriptions, at times close to prose. According to the National Academy of Letters, no book had yet taken Montevideo as its subject. A Uruguayan critic writes that the poet's muse “came down from the rostrum”. The vein continues four years later with La epopeya de la ciudad, subtitled “Nuevos poemas montevideanos”.
Who it is for
A collection of poems in Spanish, in simple, descriptive language; no French translation.
Prizes and reception
Together with the book that follows it, it gave its author, according to one critic, his own place in Uruguayan letters.
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