I Have Lots of Heart: Selected Poems - Softcover

Miguel Hernandez

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1852243325 ISBN 13: 9781852243326

Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd, 1997

Synopsis

Deeply admired by poets far more familiar to us, from Lorca to William Carlos Williams, the poems of Miguel Hernández (1910-42), written in the midst of the savage 20th century, beam with a gentleness of heart. Hernández was a self-educated goatherd from the tiny Spanish town of Orihuela who tried hard to be accepted among his older contemporaries. Lorca wrote to the young poet in 1933, telling him to stop struggling to get along in a 'circle of literary pigs'. After fighting on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, Hernández was imprisoned in several of Franco's jails, where he continued to write until his death from untreated TB in 1942: he was only 31. Miguel Hernández is one of the most revered poets in the Spanish-speaking world. From his early formalism, paying homage to Góngora and Quevedo, to the final poems, which are passionate and bittersweet, Hernández' work is a dazzling reminder that force can never defeat spirit, and that courage is its own reward. Neruda called him 'a great master of language...a wonderful poet'. This Spanish-English bilingual edition has a comprehensive, illustrated introduction by Willis Barnstone.

About this title

About the Author

Born in 1910, Miguel Hernández was a self-educated goatherd from the tiny Spanish town of Orihuela who tried hard to be accepted among his older contemporaries. Lorca wrote to the young poet in 1933, telling him to stop struggling to get along in a 'circle of literary pigs'. Both Lorca and Hernández would soon be caught up in the storm that was the Spanish Civil War. Hernández volunteered and served the Republican Army at the front, later defending Madrid itself. When Madrid finally fell to Franco in 1939, Hernández tried to cross into Portugal and soon after he was turned back, he was imprisoned. Hernandez wrote his last poems in jail while fatally ill with tuberculosis. He died three years later, his tuberculosis untreated, still in prison on March 28, 1942: he was only 31.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1852243325
• ISBN 13: 9781852243326
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160