Cesar Vallejo-Gloomy Topics

Cesar Vallejo's poems are very sad and discuss very gloomy topics. For example, in the poem The Black Messengers, the first line states that "there are some blows in life so hard..." That line sets the mood and the tone for the reader. By just reading the first line, one could say that the rest of the poem is going to be just as gloomy as that first line. As the poem continues, the poem states that the "blows" that come in life come from "God's hatred." We haven't really seen God mentioned in Marti and Dario's poems, except in Dario's poem To Roosevelt. In this poem, it is interesting to note that God is associated with "hatred." I always thought that God was known to love, not hate. Vallejo also states that the blows in life were sent by "black messengers sent us by Death." When I was reading this line, I wondered whether Vallejo used the adjective "black" to describe the messengers. Was it during the time period that Vallejo wrote this poem that people believed that "black" was bad? I'm not really sure, but that was a question that popped up in my head as I was reading the poem. Finally, the poem Black Stone Lying on a White Stone is a gloomy poem because the poem discusses Vallejo's death. Vallejo states: "I will die in Paris, on a rainy day...". In this line, Vallejo, once again, sets the mood for the rest of the poem by stating that he will die "on a rainy day." It is a sunny day or a hot day, but a rainy day, setting a gloomy mood and tone. According to the life story of Cesar Vallejo on page 95 of the poetry book, Vallejo lived the last three years of his life in Paris and he was often poor and ill, so it makes sense that he says that he will die in Paris....but he may not have been living in Paris at the time that the poem was written. Hmmm...but if he did write the poem in Paris, then it makes sense that he says that he will die in Paris. Vallejo also states that he will die in autumn. Autumn is the season before winter and winter is symbolic for old age and death because everything dies in the wintertime. I think that autumn represents adulthood and Vallejo is stating that death is soon to come because it is autumn. At the end of the poem, Vallejo states that he has died and everyone has "beaten him." I'm not really sure what that really means. I thought that maybe Vallejo is looking for pathos? maybe...I'm not really sure. Overall, Vallejo definitely, without any doubt, writes his poems with a sense of doom. I was curious as to know why he writes his poems this way, and I was reading the life story of Cesar Vallejo, and it stated that Vallejo was committed to "the agonies of humankind that Vallejo seems to make himself a pure voice of suffering and grace" (95). So, according to the life story on page 95, Vallejo wanted to make himself a spokesperson for anguish and in my opinion, Vallejo did that well.