Juan Ramon Jimenez (1881-1958) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1956, yet his work remains far less well-known in the English-speaking world than it deserves. Jimenez was a prolific writer - his collected verse fills twenty volumes - and his early poems were first published whilst still in his teens. During the early twentieth century Jimenez wrote and published voraciously and was very active within Spanish-speaking literary circles. In 1939, he left Spain for America, eventually settling in Puerto Rica until his death in 1958. It is difficult to hang a label on Jimenez' work, for his influences were many and his output vast. These selected poems, published here in English and the original Spanish, give the reader a chance to explore this remarkable talent.

“An exquisite book, rich, shimmering, and truly incomparable.” —The New Yorker This lyric portrait of a boy’s companionship with his little donkey, Platero, is the masterpiece of Juan Ramón Jiménez, the Spanish poet awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize for Literature. Poetic, elegiac, it reveals the simple pleasures of life in a in a remote Andalusian village and is a classic work of literature, beloved by adults and children alike.

A translation into English of the lyrical prose classic "Platero y Yo" by Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez, including translator's annotations, preface, and curated images. Based on the complete 1917 Spanish edition.

The development of my poetry has been and is the development of an encounter with an idea about God, the great Spanish poet and Nobel Prize winner Juan Ramón Jiménez wrote several years before his death. An early twentieth-century pioneer in the use of free verse, Jiménez has always expressed himself through mystery and profundity. The author presents a fervent landscape of primordial imagery in an attempt to restore mystical poetry to its rightful place in literature and art. For anyone not familiar with the writings of this modern master, these austere and radiant poems, translated by the poet and scholar Antonio de Nicolás and presented alongside the original Spanish, will demonstrate why Jiménez is considered one of the masters of twentieth-century poetry. To what may this writing be compared? Whitman's 'Song of Myself' comes to mind, but it is not with any intention of taking away from Whitman's achievement that I declare a preference for the poetry of Juan Ramón Jiménez ... Louis Simpson, from the Introduction

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1951.

A unique gathering of poems by two great twentieth-century poets, with the original Spanish versions and powerful English translations on facing pages. In a new preface, editor and translator Robert Bly explores what the poems reveal today about politics, the spirit, and the purpose of art.