Cesar Vallejo's Poem-Spain, Take This Cup From Me

In my opinion, Vallejo's two poem Spain, Take This Cup From Me is a very interesting poem. In the first stanza, Vallejo calls Latin America "children of the world," indicating that Latin America is still a young nation. Vallejo continues to states that "if Spain falls--I mean, it's just a thought--if she falls..." I thought it was very ironic that he says that the possibility that Spain falls is just a thought. It's almost as if he states the possibility that Spain falls and then he says, oops! I mean that won't happen but the possibility is just something that popped up in my mind. But then he confirms that possibility by again saying "if Spain falls." The phrase "if Spain falls" is like bookends around the oops! statement of "I mean, it's just a thought." That line with bookends is repeated in the third stanza and the last stanza. When I started reading that the first stanza, I thought that Vallejo was trying to reassure his audience by saying that "--I mean, it's just a thought--." Then, as I kept on reading, I thought that Vallejo seemed to be almost mocking the reader. It seemed to me that Vallejo is like a little kid keeping a secret and giving you a hint to a story, but wants you to keep guessing. In the rest of the poem, I am not really sure whether Vallejo is stating that Latin America cannot survive without Spain or whether Vallejo is trying to rev up Latin America to start a revolt against Spain. For example, "mother Spain is...appears as mother and teacher..." In this quote, Spain is teaching its students, Latin America, how to govern itself and Spain is also a mother at the same time, to nurture Latin America with the tools it needs. But, at the same time, Valeljo tells Latin America to "Lower your voice, for she is/with her rigor which is great, not knowing/what to do, and she has in her hand..." In this quote, it seems as if Vallejo is stating because Spain is clueless, Latin America can revolt against Spain. It could also be that Vallejo just wrote those words because he felt like it, but I highly doubt it.

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.