Untitled by César Vallejo | Poems Rethabile Likes
"Untitled"
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For several days, I have felt an exuberant, political need
to love, to kiss affection on its two cheeks,
and I have felt from afar a demonstrative
desire, another desire to love, willingly or by force,
whoever hates me, whoever rips up his paper, a little boy,
the woman who cries for the man who was crying,
the king of wine, the slave of water,
whoever hid in his wrath,
whoever sweats, whoever passes, whoever shakes his person in my soul.
And I want, therefore, to adjust
the braid of whoever talks to me; the hair of the soldier;
the light of the great one; the greatness of the little one.
I want to iron directly
a handkerchief for whoever is unable to cry
and, when I am sad or happiness hurts me,
to mend the children and the geniuses.
I want to help the good one become a little bit bad
and I badly need to be seated
on the right hand of the left-handed, and to respond to the mute,
trying to be useful to him
as I can, and also I want very much
to wash the lame man's foot,
and to help the nearby one-eyed man sleep.
Ah love, this one my own, this one the world's,
interhuman and parochial, maturely aged!
It comes perfectly timed,
from the foundation, from the public groin,
and, coming from afar, makes me want to kiss
the singer's muffler,
and whoever suffers to kiss him on his frying pan,
the deaf man on his cranial murmur;
whoever gives me what I forgot in my breast,
on his Dante, on his Chaplin, on his shoulders.
I want, finally,
when I'm at the celebrated edge of violence
or my heart full of chest, I would like
to help whoever smiles laugh,
to put a little bird right on the evil man's cape,
to take care of the sick, annoying them,
to buy from the vendor
to help the killer kill, a terrible thing
and I would like to be kind to myself
in everything.
César Vallejo's "Untitled" is a poem of political love — a desire so huge it embraces everyone: the one who hates, or loves, the soldier, the disabled, the deaf, even the killer. Even the dictator. It's a poem that refuses to take sides, that insists on loving all, not despite flaws but also because of them.
Written in the 1920s, when Vallejo was living in Paris (like so many poets and novelists of that time) and engaged with the political upheavals of the time, the poem moves with a kind of desperate tenderness. It wants to mend, to wash, to straighten, to help — and also to be kind to itself. There is no salvation without the self.
His poetry is marked by a sincere empathy, a willingness to enter and therefore feel the suffering of others. This poem, in its sweeping desire to love, to kiss, to adjust the braid, to put a bird on the evil man's cape, is a testament to that. It is a love that is "interhuman and parochial, maturely aged."
Poetry Foundation says that "After a number of years in Trujillo and Lima, in 1920 Vallejo returned to his birthplace where he became involved in a political insurrection during which the town’s general store burned down. He was accused of instigating the conflict and was jailed for three months. Added to the death of his mother, the isolation and savagery of incarceration affected him deeply."
Read by Claudia Rankine, whose work also explores race, citizenship, and the body, this reading finds a kindred spirit — a poet who knows that political love must be both intimate and public, both tender and fierce, and never insincere.
When César died, my mother was three years old, and my father seven. Useless information I know, but that just popped into my head. And...now you know too. 🤷🏿
Claudia Rankine reading "Untitled" by César Vallejo
In this video, Claudia Rankine reads César Vallejo's "Untitled," a poem of expansive political love and human connection.
Video source: Vimeo. Duration approximately 3 minutes.
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