In Montemora 4 Clayton Eshleman wrote about his 1968 translations of César Vallejo:
‘I had worked on the translation for six years, which involved doing ten drafts of the ninety-four poems, and probably because I had worked so hard on it, I accepted one reviewer’s judgement that it was a definitive translation. When I look back on this now, I think I must have been hoping that it was definitive i.e., that I would not have to re-do it, while some part of me feared that what I had done was only a step in the right direction.’
That step was an interesting start and this new translation by Michael Smith and Valentino Gianuzzi reveals what a more extended journey was still to go before a definitive volume could appear. This new volume from Shearsman Books
is simply fantastic and as John Muckle puts it on the blurb at the back of this seven-hundred page book ‘these translations find a voice for Vallejo’s knottiness, spookiness, and complexity of feeling.’
Tears in the Fence 