Editor’s Note: Returning to the poems of Roque Dalton is like finding yourself in a never-ending present. They never lose their relevance, in either poetic or political terms. This selection of nine poems comes from the new volume from U.S. publishing house Seven Stories Press titled Stories and Poems of a Class Struggle (2023). The translations into English are by Jack Hirschman and Barbara Paschke. The prologue is by Christopher Soto and Tatiana Marroquín. Margaret Randall and Jaime Barba each wrote introductions to this edition as well. Nothing is missing.
Almost fifty years after his appalling murder, we are pleased to publish this selection from one of the most powerful and current poetic voices of Latin American literature.
Stories and Poems of a Class Struggle is available now from Seven Stories Press.
Poeticus Eficacciae
You can judge
the moral fiber of a political regime,
a political institution
or a political man,
by the degree of danger they consent to
by way of being observed
through the eyes of a satirical poet.
Memory and Questions
While I’m listening to a rector’s talk
here in the university
(grey cops are at every door
contributing to the culture),
nauseous till I’m pale, I remember
the sad peace of my native poverty,
the sweet sluggishness with which everything dies in my town.
My father is waiting there.
I came to study
the architecture of justice,
the anatomy of reason,
looking for answers
to the enormous helplessness and thirst.
Oh night of fake lights,
glitter made of obscurity:
where should I run
other than to my own soul,
the soul that wanted to be a flag returning
and which they want to transform into a despicable rag
in this temple of merchants?
Watchtower
A religion that tells you there’s only pie in the sky
and all earthly life is lousy and vicious
and that you shouldn’t be too concerned
is the best guarantee you’ll stumble at every step
and break your teeth and soul
against absolutely earthly rocks.
On Biblical Business
The Bible says
Christ multiplied bread
and fish for the people.
If that’s so, he did well
and that makes him greater than a great general
who wins a thousand battles in which millions of poor people die.
But at present the North Americans,
to see that bread and fish don’t multiply
and that everyone suffers in resignation
the multiplied hunger that’s part of big business,
step up production of Bibles
in all the dialects we poor speak
and ship them to us in the hands of blond young men
who’ve been thoroughly trained by their generals.
Divine Victory
This Jehovah’s Witness stuff
is super fucked up
because later on
the Jehovah’s judges
the Jehovah’s cops
and the Jehovah’s National Guard
will come
and exact from us
Jehovah’s extra-legal oath.
Not to mention Jehovah’s CONDECA
and the Jehovah’s marines
and the Jehovah’s strategic bombers
better known as
Armageddon.
Epigram in Imitation of Marcial
You have rebuked, Oh Shafo, in the forum,
the excessive fervor of your younger brothers,
the total inexperience of their youth, the dangerous
dissent that split the cornerstone.
You have rebuked, Consul, their recklessness
and the risk of their lives you denounced as useless.
But nothing have you despised so much as their very wisdom,
their age of reason.
Revi(sionist) Logic
“A criticism of the Soviet Union
can only be made by an anti-Soviet.
A criticism of China
can only be made by an anti-Chinese.
A criticism of the Communist Party of El Salvador
can only be made by a CIA agent.
A self-criticism is equal to suicide.”
Parable Beginning with Revisionist Vulcanology
The volcano of Izalco
as a volcano
was ultra-left.
It flung lava and rocks out of its mouth
and made noise and shuddering,
committing crimes against peace and tranquility.
Today it’s a fine civilized volcano
that will coexist peacefully
with the Hotel de Montaña del Cerro Verde,
and into whose snout we’ll be able to put
fireworks like those
that popular deputies set off.
A volcano for executives
and even for revolutionaries and syndicalists
who know how to keep their place and aren’t hot heads
now it will no longer be the symbol for the crazy thundering guerrillas
who are the only ones who long for its explosive geologies.
Gentle and respectable proletarians of the world,
the Central Committee invites you
to learn the lesson the volcano of Izalco gives:
If the fire has gone out of fashion,
why then should we want to carry it
in our heart?
Little Letter
Dear philosophers,
dear progressive sociologists,
dear social psychologists,
don’t fuck around with alienation
when here the most fucked up
is the other nation.
Translated by Jack Hirschman and Barbara Paschke
From the book Historias y poemas de una lucha de clases / Stories and Poems of a Class Struggle (Seven Stories Press, 2023)
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Photo: Salvadoran writer Roque Dalton.
