Trilce

It is unfortunate that Eshleman's excellent translation of this extremely complex work appears just two months after Rebecca Seiferle's translation (Sheep Meadow Press). Eshleman has been translating Vallejo for over 30 years, and his edition of the Peruvian poet's Complete Posthumous Poetry won the National Book Award in 1979. From the first poem onward, it's apparent that these versions are more colloquial than Seiferle's, and that they capture the spirit if not the precise literal meaning of the poems, with the translator even making up English words to parallel undocumented words in the original. This is a poet's translation: rhythmical, with words often chosen for their sounds as well as their meanings. In extensive endnotes, Eshleman justifies his choice of words and balances his selections against the varied opinions of Spanish scholars. The translations in this bilingual volume are based on the original 1922 publication (with attempts to correct some obvious misprints), rather than the revised (1930) edition, which has become the standard in the Spanish-speaking world. Thus, this edition also presents ``a newly established Spanish text,'' and is destined to become a classic. (Aug.)