The Romantic Dogs

Roberto Bolano — 2016

This bilingual collection of forty-four poems presents English readers with their first chance to encounter the phenomenon of Roberto BolaÃ±o as a poet: his own preferred and strongest literary persona. (When asked, âe~What makes you believe that youâe(tm)re a better poet than a novelist?âe(tm) BolaÃ±o replied, âe~The poetry makes me blush less.âe(tm)) These poems âe" intimate, moving, witty and wide-ranging âe" are as diverse in form as his fiction and will offer the reader equal delight. Expertly translated from the original Spanish by Laura Healy, this is as an opportunity to encounter a poetic voice like no other; a voice hailed by Susan Sontag as âe~the real thing and the rarestâe(tm). âe~They radiate the audacity of intellect, as well as the cruelty of vision, that have won their author a devoted following.âe(tm) Boston Review âe~They [the poems] echo his brilliant but out-of-control authorial persona, with its high-speed, self-conscious verbal play, and those echoes will be more than enough to lead fans of his prose straight to his verse.âe(tm) Publisherâe(tm)s Weekly âe~Poems that unscroll like black-and-white movies or occupy the page like a tattoo, art and life entwine, and all is sinister and precious.âe(tm) Booklist

Reviews

Donald@riversofeurope

Feb 25, 2022

Bolaño is quite the poet! This is a bilingual edition, so those who can read Spanish well will get the benefit of both the original and the translation side by side. I wish more translated poetry editions did this. The poems collected here are not consistently good, but I think more than 30 of the 44 are good. Of those 30, about 15 are very good, and then there are a few that are really special. Bolaño's longer poems tend to be better than his shorter poems. My favorites: The Outsider Ape Godzilla in Mexico The Last Love Song of Pedro J. Lastarria, Alias "El Chorito" On the Edge of the Cliff The Donkey For some reason, the last few poems in the book are the worst. Apparently only 5% of the adult population reads poetry anymore, which is depressing and indicative of a 'negation of the human'. Poetry in general is a much much older form of writing than the novel, and the defense/re-emergence of print culture has to begin with the defense/re-emergence of poetry. The poems collected here are the sorts of poems young people should be reading and learning from.

Joshua Line@fictionjunky

Sep 30, 2021

This is all kinds of 'meh.' I much rather prefer his novels.

Hellboy TCR@hellboytcr009

Oct 18, 2022