Translator’s Note

In 1959, precipitating the gathering and flourishing of the Argentine Generation of 1960, Miguel Ángel Bustos’ first full-length book of poems appeared, Corazón de piel afuera. In his prologue, Juan Gelman called it a “book without precedent in Argentine poetry, of a powerful and mature, unexpected and tender lyrical flight.” Certainly, the poet’s strong and prophetic voice is already present in this early volume, his orientation toward spiritual and human concerns. Yet, we can also see Bustos influenced by and influencing his generational peers, playing with the hallmarks of this generation, the everyday, the local, in simple and conversational language.

From 1960-1963, Bustos departed from his country and the predominant poetic aesthetic of his generation, traveling into the north of Argentina, and then on into Bolivia and Peru, finally spending large periods of time in Rio de Janeiro, where he became intimately acquainted with concrete poetry. In 1964, he suffered a nervous breakdown and was interned in a psychiatric hospital, where he met poet Jacobo Fijman. It should come as no surprise, then, that Fragmentos fantásticos, dedicated “to my friends, my brothers, to those who speak from the mouth of dreams” is also profoundly influenced by Bustos’ reading of the poètes maudit, in particular Nerval, Lautréamont, Baudelaire, and Rimbaud, and many of the poems in this volume contain epigraphs from these poets. It is in Bustos’ complex engagement with all of these influences—the poètes maudit, pre-Columbian indigenous myth, world religious traditions—that his poetry truly distinguishes itself, beginning with Fragmentos fantásticos in 1965, then three years later, the Buenos Aires Municipal Prize winning Visión de los hijos del mal, and finally in his last published book El Himalaya o la moral de los pájaros in 1970. Bustos’ prolific career was cut short when he became an early victim of Jorge Rafael Videla’s military junta in 1976.

“Arrival in the Heavens,” a cycle of poems from the middle of Fragmentos fantásticos, represents the poet/prophet’s arising toward the divine, while remaining profoundly grounded in the world of sensory experience. The influence of Brazilian concrete poetry can be observed in the wordplay here, which enhances Bustos’ inherently musical language, reaching its pinnacle in these poems conceived as musical compositions. Thus, musicality was my guide in nearly every translation decision, and these poems presented many. (The breaking of words into syllables in the first poem posed particular challenges.) Before settling on “farewell,” for example, in the refrain of the first poem, I also tried “goodbye,” “going,” and “leaving.” In English, I find the musicality of Bustos in alliteration, internal rhyme, and sonic echoes like sound/wound. As the epigraph states, he is in search of a language, and I as translator follow him closely in that search. Though the poet, tragically, is no longer with us, I was fortunate to be able to go back and forth with his son, the poet Emiliano Bustos, about many of these translation dilemmas.