ABSTRACT
Thomas Christensen, the translator of Landscape with Yellow Birds, rightly observes in his preface that the poetic language of Jose Angel Valente "is sharp, clear, and intensely present". This is indeed the impression given by this bilingual selection gathering verse from the Spanish poet's first book, In a Hopeful Mode, through his last, Fragments from a Future Book. So pellucid and void of lyrical murkiness is Valente's style that a transparent surface is formed time and again, as it were, well beneath which various psychological and metaphysical depths can be glimpsed and pondered. By writing poetry, Valente is struggling toward a truth—not necessarily known at the beginning of the poem—that he might be able to reach and thereby formulate. He was court-martialed in absentia in 1972 for remarks critical of the Spanish military, but he remained much less drawn to politics than many of his contemporaries and predecessors.
