Julio Cortázar

All his poems, peoms and meops in one volume. 

Although it is Julio Cortázar’s stories and novels that have made him a classic, poetry was his primary interest as a writer. His first book was the collection of poems Presencia, published in 1938 under a pseudonym. And the last one before he died in 1984, Salvo el crespúsculo, was also poetry.

He was often asked why he waited so long to publish the poems he had been secretly writing for years. By way of an answer, he once replied: “I think it must be because I feel less capable of judging myself by them than by my prose, and also because of the perverse pleasure I derive from keeping for myself what is perhaps most mine.”

But after Pameos y meopas was published in 1971, he would complain: “Under the premise that I am not a poet but a prose writer, nobody asks me anything, nobody interviews me or asks me questions about poetic themes. And yet poetry is absolutely crucial to me.”

Now, despite still being the least known side of his work, many critics have affirmed it is essential reading in order to get to know Cortázar in his purest state. He always avoided labels in his books, the tendency to classify, the separation of genres, something his astonishing body of narrative work clearly demonstrates. Now his poetry does the same, collected together in this informative, accessible and complete anthology.

“Some people run the world, others are the world. Cortázar’s poems are the world; they have a special consideration for the unknown.” —Enrique Vila-Matas

“Whoever doesn’t read Cortázar is lost.” —Pablo Neruda

“Cortázar is a people’s poet, accessible from every angle.” —Publishers Weekly