Songbook and Ballad of Absences, Miguel Hernández

Songbook and Ballad of Absences

(Tr. Sp.-Eng. from a review in Shvoong)

 This book encompasses the author's last poetic production from 1938 until his death in Alicante jail. He never abandons the tenderness that characterizes him, that which Spanish Fascism loathed. The poet starts writing Songbook and Ballad of Absences in 1938 when the Republicans were attempting to save a vision of Spain, that was about to disappear, since the Civil War caused by the fascist state coup finished just in 1939.  

 Miguel Hernandez, wrestler of the losing side, was imprisoned for his ideas, and he died in jail, which meant not just the loss of a great fighter, but also a poet that glorifies the country where he was born, something that the fascists barbarians could never understand.
 In the early poems, he mourns the death of his first son succeeded in 1938, the tenderness that inspires his memory makes almost cry, the memory is painful but there is no anger, just pain or tenderness of the absence.The following poems will see the fall of his world, and the breakdown of his hopes, and the great love his wife inspires him. 

 In prison, he writes to a world that has collapsed, and to his wife's love, and the great hardship they are going through with their second son, whom he dedicates the Nannies of the Onion, when knowing about the poverty of his family and that he is feeding on onions.
 In these poems, the absences, the passwords of the life lived, the death of his first son and the hopes the second one generates in the perspective of an impossible future, the inner meditation, make up a shocking testimony of the end of a poetic art and of a man. Damn poet for the fascist regime, he was banned for decades, leaving generations without his tenderness and his wisdom.