Also in the APR this issue, Clayton Eshleman's translations of poems from Vallejo's Los heraldos negros. I have to say the translator gets Vallejo's voice with an almost eerie acumen, (to borrow a word from Efraín Kristal, who offers a brief introduction.) He should, since he has been working on Vallejo for many, many years. (Efraín, a colleague of mine from Grad School, is one of the most intimidatingly intelligent person I have ever known.) Eshleman's complete Vallejo is coming out in Fall 2006.

Vallejo is very hard to translate, because of his subtle logopeia. Tonal shifts that prefigure Ashbery, but with an emotional directness the polar opposite from JA's reticence.