Author: Bolaño, Roberto.
Publisher: Vintage Español
Pages:688
"Writing poetry in a country of idiots. / Writing with my son on my lap. / Writing until night falls / with a roar of a thousand demons. / The demons who are to take me to hell, / but writing none the less. " Despite all the recognition that he received for his narrative work, in essence, Bolaño always saw himself as a poet. In addition to those poems published in La Universidad Desconocida / The Unknown University, Los perros romanticos / The Romantic Dogs, and Tres/ Three, this volume also collects his poems published in magazines and collections and have since remained hard to find collectables. In all of them he explores the recurring fundamental themes in his works: love, death, exile, literature ... All of these, and his poetic drive, make Bolaño a unique exponent of contemporary poetry in Spanish. “He saw in poetry a form of rebellion and an existential intrigue that magnified life. It’s interesting that without that appeal to poetry the whole of his work would not be understood. There is hidden poetry in his novels and there are interrupted novels in his poetry. Because everything is words. As they are all words, Bolaño looked for those words that hurt the most or said the most, or hid the most, or were closest to what he was living”.