Poetry: Published Books
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From the book by Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo:
THE POETRY BY
ALFONSO VALLEJO
BOASTFULNESS, ESSENCE AND PASSION
(CRITICAL STUDY AND ANTHOLOGY)
Publishers: Huerga y Fierro. Madrid 2005
Book cover: Óleo de Alfonso Vallejo. Mixed Technique. “Siffle”
To read "The poetry by Alfonso Vallejo" click HERE
1- The First Poems. (written between 1957 and 1963)
“The poet, even during this time, had started to look for the super-synthesis. “The essential microscope” of the poetic matter through the poem, the super-concentration, the expression of the maximum and the minimum.” p.37
“He takes months writing a poem, distilling emotions, trying to reach to the very essence of expression.” p.38
“This is about a synthesis of the conception of poetry as a scalpel, and as a metaphysical manifestation of the enigma of life.” p.38
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2- The place of the cold land
Publisher: Ágora (1969) Madrid.
To read "The place of the cold land" click HERE
“In the forty four compositions of the book we already find the full intentions of the poet through his synthesis, by his economy of language , by transmitting the maximum and the minimum, by the direction marked by the unedited poem. Very rarely has Spanish poetry achieved the conceptual reaches of precision and brevity as our poet.” p.43
“The place of the cold land” is an investigation and interpretation of things and of ourselves amongst these things. An investigation that comes with an a contemplative attitude before the nearly magical development of reality. Impregnated with mystery and questions. The poems are derived from micro situations with intrigue, mini drama without explanation and reality appears suspended, held and transcended by the interpretation.” p. 43
“This is about scenes interpreted through filters, transparent and in a climate of analytical dream.” p43
“This is also the movement that the same western space of the very Eco determines the generation of the “cogito interruptus” characterised amongst other things, by highlighting the value of the symbolic universe.” p 44
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3- Molecules
Publisher. Castilla (1976) Madrid.
To read "Molecules" click HERE
“Molecules has the mark of the permanent fight between life and death, that is to say the absence of life.” p 47
“But this panorama of being at the limits is counterweighted by the wish to live.” p 47
“But, expressed here is not the wish of the protein to transform, more like the anxiety of survival that is imposed by the “tenacity of the molecules”.” p 47
“As Spinoza explains in book IV of the Ethics, demonstrated geometric order in the vacuum of all transcendental value, desire is turned in the rule. It is predictable not only in this book but also in all the works by Vallejo.
Desire is, in effect, one of the propelling forces of the following works of our author.” p 48
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4.- Lunar Fire
Publisher: Ayuso. Colección Endimión (1988) Madrid.
To read "Lunar Fire" click HERE
To read the prologue of Alfonso Vallejo click HERE
“Nevertheless, Vallejo continues to write poetry because he needs to and because poetry is, for him and other notable writers, the literary genius par excellence. Everything is poetry. That which is not poetry does not exist.” It touches all subjects. Without exception. All the possibilities of the language , the word, the rhythm, meaning, investigation. And he does it without intermediaries with a language that goes directly to the mind and the heart. The poem is excellence.” p 51
“The appeal for love is not achieved with such magnetic force, from the classic love lyrics.” p 51
“The phonetic games, the onomatopoeia, the paranomasias lead to expressive virtuosity of the words, that are able to be enumerated and in ascending gradations come shooting out in a voyage that transcends space.” p 52
“It is difficult to express love and other grand experiences of life with words more beautiful than those of this book. A hard task that also requires finding confessions less reserved and more sincere:”
“The language surges from the depths in us, sometimes exploding, converting into spurts of sounds in movement, including neologisms, that drags me. But sometimes also, sibilant, with the implacable painful balance of the scalpel.
Something is beyond doubt: every word of the letters printed here are subjected to themselves, are indispensable to contain this word. And this word to configure my very own existence. It is me. My guts.
For this reason, all that is in this book, that has been placed in this books, is necessary. Every one of its pages represents a piece of my life converted on to paper.” p 53
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5.- More
Book cover of: Oil painting by Alfonso Vallejo. “Man shouting”
Publishers: Endymión. (1990) Madrid
“In the book “Mas” the author ahows us once again brave reflections on the art of writing: “Writing is to be torn apart. Writing is to bleed. For this reason books dice up the view. For this reason the hands are dirtied with red. They also speak. In low voice and in low hearing. Body to body, with a private language do their sublime and sibilant and tortured soul.” p 57
“Semantics are supported over the nucleus of the meanings themselves: adventure, risk, discovery, encouragement, revelation, indignation. At the bottom “a big hunt of the mind,” existence identified with the light.“ p 57
“As always, the defence of the autonomy of the individual is accompanied with its unyielding dimension of solidarity.” p 57
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6.- Interior flesh
Publisher: Libertarias (1994) Madrid
To read "Interior flesh" click HERE
“The book is, furthermore, a clinical analysis of the architecture of the self, self analysis, an interpretation of the meaning of being here and now, of the “existence” in view of the world that he lives in.” p 60
“Other poems are clear examples of introspection, of a vision of the “intra world,” or the cosmic terror and of the tragic feeling of man’s condition.”
“The ideas of the time of being, of the time of consciousness, of duration, and in the meaning which he attributes these concepts in the philosophy of Bergson, he finds the precise formulation of some of these compositions.” p 61
“Advancing a level more than Nietzsche, Vallejo proclaims the benefits of action, the necessity of solving problems and the constructive spirit.” p 62
“The exterior is used to be united to its beliefs in the capacity of man, in the power of science, in the force of mystery.” p 62
“To sing with joy for his plurality of meaning and not in the restrictive and in taking whatever comes one’s way, amongst other things, the discovery of reality.” p 62
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7.- Materica light
To read "Materica light" click HERE
“Another book that is surprising pleasant that analysis the external world, silent matter that returns back to concepts and language through experience, transforming into feeling, in an illuminated life that can be transmitted.” p 65
“As he has shown in the past books, the proclamation of one’s identity, does not contrast with solidarity and the community with the rest of the series, to the needs of others.” p 65
“In these type of situations-limits, in which the words that come out lose their metaphorical and poetic value, they acquire in the voice of our author the most heart wrenching tones.” p 66
“Unfortunately, one regularly comes into contact with death in a hospital. In spite of this tremendous company, one manages to write, and succeed, through this writing, poetic material, a challenge that requires our respect. And if the work is done well, as in this case, it also merits our total admiration.” p 66
“Over and above everything else there is the affirmation of evident kindness of life, unstoppable, always in action, transforming and multiplying: “Without hope/Life is not possible/ and Truth is false. /Without hope/ Speed halted/ Stillness paralysed/ From point zero/ Could not be converted in time/ and after Molecular Action/ Territory and Energy.”” p 67
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8.- Clarity in action
(Prologue by Francisco Nieva) Publisher. Huerga y Fierro (1995). Madrid
To read "Clarity in action" click HERE
To read the prologue of Francisco Nieva click HERE
“….includes a prologue by the Spanish academic Francisco Nieva, where he, amongst other things, endorses the author: “He is a hard man, independent, who looks into himself as if revolving in the bowls of someone on a surgeon’s operating table, analysing, interrogates and employs the case of forms for contrast, theatre of different genres, poems....”” p 70
“The ontological and epistemological aspects, frequent in Vallejo’s poems, already appear in the first works, were we are involved and acquainted with the being of the self, a instantaneous revelation of what exists.” p 70
“He imposes, therefore the dense of fantasy and imagination and the appeal of art as revelation.” p 71
“One of the following books by Vallejo is called Astral Compass, his poems always show a way out, always indicating north, a point of orientation, an ideal.” p 72
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9.- Blue Sun
Book Cover: Oil painting by Alfonso Vallejo. “Sol azul” (Blue Sun)
(Prologue by Carlos Bousoño) Publisher. Huerga y Fierro (1997). Madrid
To read the prologue of Carlos Bousoño click HERE
“… the prologue is written by the poet and academic Carlos Bousoño who writes: “The most surprising thing about Alfonso Vallejois his diversity of talents. (…) Compared with the bold prose and the apparent simple linearity of the most common poetic writings today, elevates Vallejo’s effort to a multifaceted baroque of symbolic shots, incessant gusts of emotion that is expressed thorugh accumulation. All this makes us feel his poetry as a personality indifferent to fashion, at “face value,” as is, in principle a symptom of originality.”” p. 74
“I do cannot find a better way of reaching what all poets claim: to be what they are. The hunting call is here. The hunter is ready for the task. The result is this this book audacious and necessary.” Carlos Bousoño. p. 74
“Blue Sun is a condensed book, of tight and close writing, that talks about light, energy that gives life to matter, produces solar combustion and the origin of spiritual activity, the highest expression of solar power. We find ourselves before a new sublimation of what is essential and elementary.” p. 74
“Before the metaphysical emptiness it is not difficult to discover the tacit affirmation of hope, emotion and clarity.” p. 75
“The personal definition arises in the best auto affirmation compared to emptiness.” p. 75
“Alfonso Vallejo, who sums up the Latin spirit from all its aspects, is an European poet, in all the extent and meaning of the term. Previously he spoke about his study of French and his aptitude in German, now he shows us the direction to English, London, Newton.” p. 75
“Although our author does not forget to deal with all the aspect of reality, no matter how hard it is, he is always positive.” p. 76
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10.- End of the century and fear propagation
Book Cover: Oil painitng by Alfonso Vallejo. 110 cm by 80 cm. “Ursprung”
(Prologue by Oscar Barrero Pérez) Publisher. Alhulia (1999). Salobreña. Granada.
To read "End of the century and fear propagation" click HERE
To read the prologue of Oscar Barrero Pérez click HERE
“Some of them are given by Oscar Barrero in the prologue: “In synthesis what has been said, we can sum up the poetic preoccupations of Alfonso Vallejo in this list without any order of preference: death, surrealism, nature, time, current fad, violence. Plus another element which has not been mentioned, but present from the first verse to the last: a concept we may call the biology of being human.” p. 78
“More than a fad, the preceding of this poem are deserved and inflict relevant blows to reality. The first writing of the book, “The invisible exists” is an essential text not only as a work by Vallejo but also contemporary Spanish poetry.” p. 78
“They do not stop him from trying, with absolute satisfaction, the task of deconstructing the language, in which the non-expression is not manifested as the perfect expression.” p. 79
“Alfonso Vallejo, is such a tenacious writer in all the aspects of reality, that he never accepts the map of the surface nor the photograph of the exterior. He explores the depths of the sea, not only the ocean, and transcends the astral limits of creatures and the big things or the big things of this labour of investigation, which is everything in his poetry.” p. 79
“He enjoys the totality of meaningful poetry and the style of the words, and when the words have been squeezed to their limits of expression, there will be the need to create new terms. Amongst them is “ Mistenigma ” which is an absolute achievement.” p. 79
“The continuing permanent affirmation constitutes another of his categorical imperatives and the author expresses with the clarity of the midday light in these “threats of ink” in which “he want s his soul to dissolve,” his “flesh” and his “heart” “ p. 80
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11.- Eternity at every instant*
*Book Cover: Oil painting by Alfonso Vallejo. Mixed Media. “Eternity at every instant”
(Edition and Prologue by Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo) Publisher. Huerga and Fierro (2000) Madrid
To read "Eternity at every instant" click HERE
To read the prologue of Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo click HERE
“It can already be seen in his title how the dialectic of time is constructed on what is permanent and fleeting, over the philosophy of Parmenides and Hereclitus at the same time.” p. 83
“Creation with Alfonso Vallejo always supposes an investigation with reality and truth; in his writings the poet runs on two parallel lines, secants and tangents to the ontological and to the conscious, and the aesthetic result comes in the source of knowledge.” p. 83
“From a very certain instance in space-time, a shout of happiness proclaims the praise of being. The alogicidad search puts us on notice of a “hieroglyphic confusion” but also of a space without limits nor frontiers where time does not impose its rigid laws. The irrationality of modern poetry, which has been cleverly analysed by Carlos Bousoño, through the verses of our poet a universe where including chaos and disorder are exulting proclamation of being, thinking, love and the verification of having been born. Time is already running the philosophical trajectory of Plato and Kant, Newton and Bergson, Heidegger and Husserl.” p. 84
“The scientific and philodophicsal voction of the poerty of Alfonso Vallejo is the fruit of his verification that, sometimes its seems that the first pact between the world and being human has been broken, as Martin Buber says, could be and not be. And scientifically, metaphysically and statistically we are pure randomness, “the truth, blessed randomness.”” p. 86
“The writings of Vallejo eternally inaugurate every moment a new epoch, because in it the impossible is possible....” p. 88
“But like all genuine creators, Vallejo does not innovate from nothing, unless he finds in established science, philosophy and literature, and his life experience, the lantern that lights his poetry.” p.89
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12.- White darkness
Book Cover: Oil painting by Alfonso Vallejo. “White darkness”
Huerga and Fierro Publishers. Madrid 2001. Edition and prologue by Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo. Madrid
To read "White darkness" click HERE
To read the prologue of Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo click HERE
“The poetry of Alfonso Vallejo is highlighted by some of the Wittgensteinian ideas and a conformation and negation of the closing sentence of the Tractatus: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” Because reckless pretension of explaining the inexplicable elevates the author to contradiction.
This is not about imposing silence on those who are not able to speak. It is the ultra modern style in which we hear the word which has not yet been pronounced, at its supreme moment of its genesis, in the explosion of the electrical discharge which is at the basis of speech.” p. 93
“With White darkness we enter the kingdom of the “trans-perception”” p. 95
“Being and living, living and being,” are notes that are repeated with a symphonic litany in many of the pages of this book. Once again we marvel before the miracle of writing and life.” p. 95
“Nothing is more evident in the Vallejian poetry than the self which seems most individual and private is integrated in a plurality of selves. And where each one of us constitutes a live scene where we a variety of actors playing infinite parts.” p. 96
“The enigma, that with frequency, in the poetry of Vallejo pretty with the mythical, does not disguise the evident, nor does it divulge the unknown; the enigma is the challenge that incites us to glimpse the certain in the uncertain, the concentrated and submerged in the dispersed and apparent, the genial and the grandiose in the trivial and the small.” p. 98
“Love, pain and hyperbole are new highlights in the new faith of life. The poet leaves a testimony of his exasperations and failures, but also his presence and victories. And amongst the latter, the most important without any doubt, is the being and having been, the power of inquiry with the arcane hieroglyphic and by the dazzling mystery of life. And when we think we have reached the summit, a new book presents us with a new challenge.” p. 99
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13.- To be Plutonic
Book cover: Oil painting by Alfonso Vallejo: ”To be Plutonic”
Publisher. Huerga y Fierro. (2002) Edition and prologue Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo. Madrid.
To read "To be Plutonic" click HERE
To read the prologue of Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo click HERE
“In, To be Plutonic, write, belief, construct, interpret, deconstruct are some of the challenges and self imposed rules to demonstrate that the absurd can be reached and neutralised with the significant.” p. 102
“This new and dazzling book is a link more in an attempt to interpret reality in its gnoseology and ontology. For this task, which is already present in previous poems and in his rich trajectory in theatre, is now added expression, interpretation, construct and deconstruct the lovable phenomenon.” p. 103
“The classical thinking, as Emilio Lledó explains in “The memory of the Logos” and as Alfonso Vallejo knows very well, requires, “the systematic connection of nature, in which man is an essential element.” p. 105
“It is a satisfying visual path across all the spectrum of light and an pleasant invitation to lovingly enjoy with a dazzling presence of carnality.” p. 106
“In these early years of the new millennium it is necessary more than ever to return to this “ plutonic being,” born from fire, cause of all fertility and source of all wealth. With an epoch tainted with nihilism and negativism, where some worship the culture of death, it seems there is an urgent need to redefine man and the proclamation of faith in life. All this and much more is Plutonic being: a fight body to body with life, a cannibalism, an opulent desire, an exuberant explosion of joy; a return to the individual, to sex, to imagination, to a testimony where there is no turning back, where the universe is still alive, pulsating, everything is pure energy, a shout, a sum, of affirmation of the poetry of life.” p. 109
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14.- Astral Compass
Book cover: Oil painting by Alfonso Vallejo: “Astral Compass”
Publisher: Huerga y Fierro (2003). Edition and Prologue: Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo. Madrid.
To read "Astral Compass" click HERE
To read the prologue of Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo click HERE
“An affirmation of faith in life in every book and every poem by Vallejo.” p. 112
“When introducing us to the subject of consciousness, or awareness as the authors prefers to call it to remove any connotations of ethics or morality from the term, we ascend to the zone of profound psychology and psychological neurology.” p. 113
“In the Vallejian poetry there can be seen that it does not deal with the reconstruction of man but the construction of a new man. “ p. 115
“We are coaxed to speak of human solidarity, justice and nobleness.” p. 115
“The experience of love and the experience of knowledge are what strain the extremes of the classical dialectics of being or not being, but they are also what liberate us from emptiness.” p. 117
“Without forgetting what was said before, what is authentic about the poems of Alfonso Vallejo is his real singular character. The style of Vallejo is Vallejo, and this is not a tautology. No one can accuse our author of not being authentically personal.” p. 123
“This is not the time to draw a map of contemporary Spanish poetry and place in it the poetry by Vallejo, but it is just and pertinent that it should stand out in the rich panorama of our days, characterised by a multitude of voices. The poetry by Alfonso Vallejo is one that sounds with most force. It has contributed, without doubt, that it has dared to transit through a territory that has until now been unusual. From the Pain Unit of a hospital to phenomenological philosophy, from the intricate labyrinth of the brain to the macro spaces of the universe or the micro dimensions of Nuclear Physics. His investigation about these varied spaces is a feast for our perspective and cognitive curiosity.“ p. 125
“The scientific and cultural world is in debt with who ever these times has favoured poetry by knowing how to redefine and renovate poetry and managed to establish the faith in life, the fundamental of creations.” p.125
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15.- Labyrinths-Investigation 40. Orso. Bari. Emilio Coco.
In “I Quaderni Di Abanico” (2003). Translated by Emilio Coco. Italian anthology of poetry with selections from the last fourteen books. Prologue: Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo. Levante Publisher. Bari.
To read "Labyrinths-Investigation 40" click HERE
To read the prologue of Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo click HERE
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16.- Trans consciousness and desire
Book Cover: Oil painting by Alfonso Vallejo: “Looking at Darkness”
Publishers Huerga and Fierro. (2004) Edition and prologue: Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo. Madrid
To read "Trans consciousness and desire" click HERE
To read the prologue of Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo click HERE
“With regularity, poets go over their career and publish anthologies of a selection of their published work and then tell us about the future. This is what Alfonso Vallejo does in Labyrinths-Investigation 40 (Levante Publishers 2003). The bi-lingual anthology, Spanish and Italian, which is edited by the Emilio Coco, from Italy, who is very clever and a master in this type of work, has included an extensive introduction by Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo.
Alfonso Vallejo has contributed in filling in the hole that existed in Spanish poetry, and he has done it with great force, a beauty and extraordinary excellence. This is reflected in his last five books of poetry, and those selected here are a good example of this, and in his intense dedication for the need poetry during more than forty years.” p. 129
“Vallejo has shown us once again that there is theme not area in poetry that is prohibited.” p. 130
“Said in an other way, knowing and loving are nearly the same thing, science identifies with art. “ p. 130
“This prolongs the existence of the compromise postulated by the poets of the fifties and sixties.” p. 134
“We are before fundamental concepts of neurology and psychoanalysis, which Vallejo has incorporated with indelible ink in the universe of poetry. Guessing, progress, anticipation, intuition. Invents, and furthermore, the term trans consciousness, which supposes a superior level of feeling and knowledge which can be reached through contemplation, attention and internal purification. They are now grounds of mysticism and of Buddhism.” p 136
“It is not infrequent that Alfonso Vallejo reverts to philosophical terms and concepts to express terms that can with difficulty be expressed in other way.” p. 139
“”At the edge of me” takes to the top a new reformulation of the situation-limit, that nobody, quite rightly, can ignore as a great example of philosophical and literary thinking of our era.” p. 142
“The poet invents terms, dissolves the morphology of the words and responds to the infinite expressive possibilities of all the languages.” p. 143
“”Trans consciousness and desire” as we said at the beginning, it is the verification of poetry as art and science are the same and that everything is one and diverse. As we have been able to test, this multi facet, to which many poems allude to manifest them in the polychromatism, in the coverage of the many various fields: neurology, hospital, brain, mind, psychoanalytical function of the mind, action, philosophy, transcendence, words with all their potential, expressions, rhythm and chromatic.....all the poems, as well as deepening of knowledge- is a feast for the senses.” p. 148
“This poem is a volcano, a hurricane, a mountain and a torrent: there is wind, fire, land and water everywhere. This poetry is like this, but the personality of Vallejo is also like this.” p. 148
“Vallejo is defining in his work important concepts but at the same time he is redefining the same involvement of the language of poems. No doubt, this can be valiant. And here is where become united valour and jusdgement: audaces fortuna iuvat. (fortune favours the brave).” p. 149
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17.- Escence and Prereality
Cover: “The bi dimensional man ”. Oil. Mixed technique by Alfonso Vallejo
Publisher. Huerga and Fierro. Edition and Prologue: Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo. Madrid (2005)
To read "Escence and Prereality" click HERE
To read the prologue of Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo click HERE
“This new task corresponds, first of all, to the development of the poet who has been looking for since he started writing and could be summarised as follows: investigation, adventure, risk, exploration of the world he has lived in, elucidation of his own view of being alive and his intimate personal life.” p. 152
“This cathartic process of purification through experience constitutes the “advancement” of the self about the self, so present in his drama, in his artistic creations and, above all, in his poetry.” p. 152
“We find here before us a personal vision of the world and the self, expressed by one of the voices most unique of Spanish poetry. And at the same time with his own view, that which the author “has seen” and with the instrument of his powerful writing.” p. 153
“It is not only poetry about love but amazingly the evidence is that everything is surprisingly brief, and simply by being .” p. 169
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18.- Instinctintuiton and Truth
Book Cover: Oil Painting by Alfonso Vallejo. 110 por 80. “Instinctintuiton and Truth”
Edition and prologue: Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo. Publisher. Huerga and Fierro.
To read "Instinctintuiton and Truth" click HERE
To read the prologue of Francisco Gutierrez Carbajo click HERE
“The work by Vallejo, on the lines of scientific and classical philosophy thinking, and the most important present day discoveries, confirms that each one of us is who they are, according to the genetic code, according to inheritance and our relationship with our environment. We are an instant of living matter gifted with consciousness, unrepeatable, instantaneous, private, personal.” p. 177
“Joined with genetics, in Instinctintuiton and truth we participate in a new introduction of the problem of truth.” p. 177
“An other of his majestic synthesis of his thinking is found in “Llamo Dios a toso esto” (Call all this God). The author asks what can we call life, what name to give to light, to the adventure of the being, hope, illusion, justice, truth. The answer is established here: Call all this God, And the absence of God, we call evil.” p. 189
“In contrast and confronted with evil, the defence of happiness and life. Life is the only thing we have, life is truth, science and thinking. This is the miracle.” p. 190
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19.- Fantasy and Irrationality
Book Cover :Oil painting by Alfonso Vallejo. 110 by 88. “Fantasy and Irrationality”
Edition and prologue by Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo. Publisher Huerta and Fierro. (2006)
To read "Fantasy and Irrationality" click HERE
To read the prologue of Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo click HERE
“The question determines what the extraordinary consist in. The Royal Spanish Academy dictionary defines this as: “outside the ordinary or natural and common law” and also as “what is added to the ordinary.” In the poetry of Alfonso Vallejo takes an other meaning.
In his writings about the extraordinary it is not what is outside the law, nor in the extravagance, nor the paranormal, nor if you wish, the paranormal. The extraordinary is simply the ordinary but with truth, beauty, intensity and grace.
The extraordinary in the works of Vallejo is implied in reality and trans reality, the present and what is to come, in the precise instant and the everlasting, the chronology of the news and the philosophical investigation, social anthropology and the anecdotes of every day life, classical tradition and the modern and postmodern spirit, the rejection of the irrationality and the constant search for the transrational, the political compromise and the fresh carnivalesque satire, the defence of the new man and the accusation of the irreparable distraction of man by man.”
“Every work of Alfonso Vallejo is like an encyclopaedia: no aspect of reality is left untouched, no problem left unconsidered, no discipline left uninvestigated. This way we access his philosophy of consciousness and ontology, to the history of literature and art, to sociology at all levels and extractions, to science with special reference to its big discoveries in physics, and of course, in medicine, in all its aspects, but with special reference to the world of clinical neurology.....”
“Every work of Vallejo presents an extraordinary ethical dimension and a political compromise with is accentuated in Fantasy and Irrationality.”
“Alfonso Vallejo without leaving the examination of the achievements of the ethics of consent, he always applies all the mechanisms of the ethics of dissent.”
“It is not easy today to find a book where the concepts of the limits and limitless do not receive a radical treatment as they do in the Works of Vallejo. The string of the bow seems to be always pulled to its maximum, but once the dramatic situations leaves a space for the moment, they are not necessarily tragic.”
“On some other occasions Vallejo was compared to Goya. In Fantasy and Irrationality, the Black from the black paintings of Goya and the characters by Solana come to light in the Meninas. As in the painting by Velázquez, in the Works by Vallejo emerge the traditional style and the privilege of many representations.”
“I believe that in an other work I affirmed, and if I haven’t I will affirm it now, that Alfonso Vallejo, together with Ramón Gómez de la Serna, is an author that is most original and cosmopolitan in Spanish literature. Now I want to add that Vallejo is one of the men who most loves what is local and what is independence and also he is one of the most nomadic.”
“In this line, Fantasy and Irrationality, he constructs a new tier to a career crowned with summits. One more time the authors demonstrates that what he writes is like he lives, because he writes is not something attached to him, but something natural, something implicit in the way he conceives life, and furthermore he reflects how and where he feels with all his questions and certainties.”
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20.- “Twilight zone, quimeria and passion”. Edition and prologue by Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo. Publisher Huerga and Fierro. Madrid 2008. Edition January 2008.
Book Cover : Painting by Alfonso Vallejo. 100 by 81. “Lady and Death”
To read "Twilight zone, quimeria and passion" click HERE
To read the prologue of Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo click HERE
“One day we will learn to appreciate in all its just proportions the rigour and the conceptual depth of the Works of Vallejo. And the profound aesthetic transformation and expression he has introduced at the formal and style level. Amongst these are the Spanish Royal Academy, has recognised and lauded with all its merit his work, however, some still reign in the universe of provincialism, in all the worst meaning of the term, the stable and the ranch, also in their least positive meaning, and in envy. Vallejo knows, as Seneca did, how the honest person is never defeated, and establish, as the great philosophy of Spinoza does, the soul and the “impulse” in some of the most powerful engines of some of his works.”
“Every work by Vallejo is an example of it and his book * Twilight zone, quimeria and passion* is an example of our functions of our brain centres connected with the emotions, memory and with those linked with more intellectually sophisticated functions. But (relax) here you understand everything, and “the nature of things” with explicit allusions to Lucretius, are explained to us with clinical cases, but also with reference to every day things, a reality which in every case and every time, limits us and defines us. Here lives the philosophy with the world or marginality, always elevated to the artistic rung, the gravity with the most lucid and cynical intonations.
All this corresponds to an interior order perfectly united and organised, even if each poem seems to go its own way, that every mini drama or mini tales corresponds to a distinct style or investigation. One more time, the work of Vallejo establishes a basic element: memory, memories of what has been lived. It is not a “search” for lost time, in the style of Proust, except for the reconstruction of day to day poetry, philosophy and life. In the depth of the being of Alfonso Vallejo beats the necessity to analyse and define what this “new man” consists in which needs to be built, far from many hypocrisies, so much stupidity, so many political, ideological and cultural lies.”
“In * Twilight zone, quimeria and passion* man is what he is converted into. We have the obligation to “survive” that finds the way based on solidarity, justice and truth. Some things seem to be known and accepted, the author argues that “ he does not know what he is looking for, that he does not find it.” We cannot allow him to play with our live. We must radically oppose to the big systems that move with power and money. We must be critical with our selves and with everything that surrounds us. Art is not an entertainment or a simple dialectical circumstance. Art is a medicine. Art has to cure or at the very least offer relief. It has to “open,” “invent.” And every contribution may contribute to this process, today, it is simply personal experience, personal sincerity, personal criteria and the unique point of view.”
“It might be appropriate to remember that one of the biggest creation of the 18th century, the Diary of Spanish writers, which should be remembered it was one of the most important that was being produced in Europe at the time, that included within its ambit of literature not only the imaginative creations, but also material, such as history, medicine and philosophy. Vallejo, in this 18th century meaning, is like a renascence for his work this versatile, open, shod and very “twenty first century” with his labour of scientific, artistic and literary anticipation.”
“For Vallejo “there is nothing more universal than the unique “ and his life, in the last year, at least, has been lived in total and absolutely privacy. In everything. Because he galloped as he could and how he wanted. Without any servitude, dependencies or pacts. The only pact he has is with his profession and his life.”
“A walk, therefore, on all the paths of literature and life with a rhythm, with grace, art, potential. Little or nothing escapes the hearing of Vallejo and the penetrating eyes of the author, gifted with a sight that is more than normal. The philosophy, medicine, the big scientific discoveries, modern technology systems, everything has as place in the poetry of Vallejo, which in every one of his books he does not forget to teach us the classics, but always looks for new interpretations. The old words have new semantic meanings and the language stretches like a bow and shoots right into the bull’s eye. Sometimes, the author tries to uncentre the centre, looks for provocation and dialectical confrontation, but he always know how to expose, between the dark and the silent night, the fresh air and the light of the morning.”
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21.- “Enigm and develation”.
Book Cover :Oil painting by Alfonso Vallejo. 110 by 88. “Enigm and develation”
Edition and prologue by Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo.
To read "Enigm and develation" click HERE
To read the prologue of Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo click HERE
A universal dimension of the poetry of Alfonso Vallejo
The new technologies have broken the frontiers of space and time. And today the phenomenon of everything, especially of politicians, artists and culture have acquired at the same time of their creation a global dimension. This situation reaches a major significance for words with a universal vocation such as the works of Vallejo who will very soon move into new times. And without losing his personal identity, which is profoundly Spanish, transcends the Mediterranean to the Germanic thinking, from the roots of the Spanish writers Quevedo and Cervantes to the French world of the marginalised poets, from the construction of the Goyesc and Spanish Valleinclanescas to the profound Slave literature and to the best resources of Anglo Saxon art. (P. 7)
A book that is not a step further in his ascending trajectory as a poet, but also the top of a series of summits, that could easily be the zenith of a brilliant career. But knowing the author and his works, it is a new universe, which he is claiming already through his own constructions. A prolongation of other universes. It is also a key and a password to understand what is happening in western poetry; an inter-textual dialogue of the important movements of contemporary poetry. (p 7)
The poetry of Alfonso Vallejo includes the preoccupation and procedures of the most important poetry movements of today. The analogies and themes of some of the current movements and the authors mentioned above confer to their verses a universal dimension rarely found in any contemporary Spanish author. (p 17)
I am not talking about the influence not, if you wish, the dialogues between “communicating poets” to use an expression by Marion Benedetti, but by happy coincidence, which can be explained by Alfonso Vallejo constantly submitting himself every day to this creations, his thinking and his life. This coincides with the best and to give his work universality. (p 17)
When Alfonso Vallejo writes poetry, he can only live by concentrating on the expressions “natural” of what is happening to him and the society where he lives. For this reason the content of his poetry books, as much as his theatre works and paintings are a testimony of how he goes about inventing his life, from hour to hour as it develops around him. We can say it again: his masters are life and reality.
This is why there are social chronicles, readings, imagination, mini dramas short tales, romantic spasms, references to clinical cases which he attends to daily, critique of philosophies which he is always reading, bits from astronomy, metaphysical investigations in the territory of beliefs etc. (p 18)
The author had the good fortune of reaching dazzling poetic heights. It did this with an effort which we think is gigantic. But the present situation today is not favourable to the petty and ruins, but to the titans, to the great, great effort, wisdom, bravery and ethic. In front of these fortunate rays of reason and imagination, we, the readers, feel illuminated and guided in a world, without letting it become an enigma every time and thanks to authors like Vallejo, are removing some of these veils.
When we perform a task perfectly, when we come across face to face with beauty, when we listen to the best singing, when the reading comes to an end of any of Vallejo’s poems, and most of all, when we finish the book we understand and feel that we have reconciled ourselves with life. (p 36)
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22.- “Transvivencia y plenitud”. Edition and prologue by Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo. Publisher Huerga and Fierro. Madrid 2010.
Book Cover :Oil painting by Alfonso Vallejo. 110 by 88. “Transvivencia y plenitud”
To read "Transvivencia y plenitud" click HERE
To read the prologue of Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo click HERE
The Fullness and the No-Limits of Alfonso Vallejo
“Each one of Alfonso Vallejo’s works is a condensed enciclopedia. A synthesis of philosophy, physics, and astronomy, besides being assembled in the best of literary workshops. A work without boundaries or borders.” p. 7
“Transvivencia y Plenitud, beyond its literary and cientific components, establishes a dialogue with the most important lines of contemporary philosophical thought. It is a dialogue of great richness and complexity, lucid and absolutely necessary, since the homogenizing winds of our time - driven in part by new technology - have almost come to blow away the differences between distinct tendencies and even different individualities.” p.7
“It is one of Russell’s last works, An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, that has the most meaningful presence in Transvivencia y Plenitud in its treatment of problems as much from the psychological perspective as the logical one. For his own part, Frege defines arithmetical notions starting from logical principles and his theoretical contributions have been built into some of the fundamental suppositions of semantics regarding feeling and reference. The latter aspect is restated in Vallejo’s work, in which “feeling” is one of his core preoccupations”p.7
“To continue with the cited authors, if Bertrand Russell’s Principia Mathematica and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus logico-philosophicus, followed by the Vienna and Berlin Circles and high profile professors in California and other regions of outstanding universities, are all of the opinion that philosophical content must accompany a clarification of thought, Alfonso Vallejo rejects the traditional philosophical problems, especially those with metaphysical and ontological roots, along with the logical positivists. In doing so, he takes a step forward and defends the philosophy of ordinary language and its relationship with other liberal arts and scientific disciplines. The dialogue without limits.”. p.8
“Wittgenstein’s suppositions lost their unquestionable quality with the appearance of certain scientific and techonological developments, like computers, Chomskyan linguistics and neurophysiology. In several of Vellejo’s works, and especially in Transvivencia y Plenitud, neurology and the philosophy of the mind, said by John Searle to have surpassed language philosophy by the mid-20th century, acquire a special significance.” p.8
“Habermas believes that their slide toward strictly philosophical questions, such as negative dialectic, put the diagnostic-explicative function of critical theory in danger. A critical theory without empirical content can easily degenerate, he says, into an empty rhetorical gesture. Some of Vallejo’s texts also warn against this risk. Contrary to the pessimism of Adorno and Horkheimer, Habermas insists that we have to work to “complete the project of modernity” begun in the Enlightenment. The poems of Transvivencia y Plenitud encourage us in this task. Vallejo is working to complete the project of modernity, but also to take Habermas’ concept of interpretation to fields it has never before been raised in. Vallejo, who is well acquainted with limit-situations, has set for himself the goal - an ethical, artistic and life-goal - of transcending limits.” p. 10
“In Anosognosia total, in which questions from the most current cortical neurology are addressed, the gypsy considers the incomprehensible in the workings of the cerebral cortex and in so doing, the interpretation of life. It is, no more, no less, a restatement of some of Habermas’ hermeneutical questions, based on neurology and in colloquial speech.”p.10
“In this sense, the works of Vallejo connect more with another of the most important philosophical and critical theories of the present day: the hermeneutics of Hans Georg Gadamer, among others. Vallejo is always wondering, questioning, probing, and for Gadamer questioning is a way of producing knowledge. The question configures, models, establishes the territory in which the answer makes sense.”p.11
“In this and other books by Vallejo, inquiry and questioning are closely tied to the concept of revelation. The ideas of Alfonso Vallejo and those of Gadamer coincide in that truth is not only based on the scientific method, but can also be revealed through art. But this aesthetic awareness should not be conceived as separate from historical experience. The analysis of experience revealed by art permits the discovery of a worthwhile model for all history to come.” p.11
“But we find ourselves back at the beginning: the more you know, the less you know. In spite of this, or beyond it, the book Transvivencia y Plenitud is full of decision making, therapeutic measures, and critiques of many present-day attitudes and positions, marking them as simple and superficial. There is a profound questioning of the past and the present. It is a philosophical update, as the author would imagine it, like a permanent system of fine tuning for all orders, from moral to political, from knowing to being. Also the whine, of pain and of pleasure.” p. 14
“The mind and the brain are not only the basis for all the poems in this book, but in several of them they are the nucleus of the narrative path.” p 14
“Transvivencia y plenitud, with its semantic fullness, its aesthetic greatness and philosophical depth, is the culmination of a cycle, but does not close it. On the contrary, it opens up a universe filled with infinite worlds, which we are invited to visit, learn from, and enjoy. However, this is no self-help book, rather an indispensible work to distinguish - in its diverse trajectories - that which is an accessory to life from that which is necessary.” p.34
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23.- Antología italiana bilingüe. “Avventura-Verità.50”. Edition and prologue by Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo. Traduzione di Emilio Coco. Publisher Levante Editori.
Book Cover :Oil painting by Alfonso Vallejo. 110 by 81. “Avventura-Verità.50”
To read "Avventura-Verità.50" click HERE
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24.- “Tiempo silencio y verdad”. Edition and prologue by Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo. Publisher Huerga y Fierro. Madrid 2011.
Book Cover :Oil painting by Alfonso Vallejo.
Edition and prologue by Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo.
To read"Tiempo silencio y verdad" click HERE
A BEACON IN SPANISH POETRY
Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo
“Time Silence and Truth by Alfonso Vallejo shows many common points with Children of Wrath by Dámaso Alonso, although the former also contains influences from other mentioned books, from works by foreign authors, from philosophical and scientific treatises, from journalistic stories and from the chronicles of daily life. Alfonso Vallejo’s book is renovating the poetic language of our time, a beacon in Spanish poetry, a fully-formed book, a necessary book.” (p. 5)
“It has been said before, and it is convenient and needed that it be repeated: each of Alfonso Vallejo’s works is a proclamation of faith in life, an invitation to do things right, to think, probe, track, enjoy, work with courage, with grace and with art. There is no middle ground in his creation. In the big as much as the small, or the light as much as the serious, the treatment of the theme is always with the greatest strength and intensity.” (p 5)
“Alfonso Vallejo’s poetry is universal in its themes - and he covers every theme - and in the dimension he stamps upon them.” (p.5)
“His writing is a following of things and of the surroundings and problems of humanity, but also an investigation of himself. Deep down, for Vallejo writing poetry has much in common with making a ship’s log or scientific log, a notebook reporting the invention and transfiguration of daily reality, and of his most internal and true life. At the heart of it, adventure.
The author’s life over this past year has been enclosed in the complex, protean and multiform universe of this book. Nothing has been kept back. Simply because it could not be. Because the words of his architecture represent the “ultrafiltrate” of the system that allows it to live. It is just like it sounds. No more or less than what he has left in this work. Alfonso Vallejo, like all of us, is a being filled with limitations, shortcomings and deficiencies, being different from the rest of us because he knows how to throw himself into the territory of un-Vallejo, the field of speculation, fantasy and revelation with bravery and toughness.” (p.6)
“Alfonso Vallejo’s words produce in us that sensation of wonder that mystery also provokes, which certainly is no different from the fascination that little things arouse. It would not surprise me if the author himself was confounded by his words, by the aggression, the attack, the avalanche of the self against the self. It is no exaggeration to say one’s heart breaks at that irrational shiver caused by the strange, complex and unexplainable. Nor is it an exaggeration to say that the author’s heart might also be breaking.
This could be the bravest of Vallejo’s books. It is as honest and true as the rest, but with a marvelous strength. It is a book of power and passion, but tempered, without veering headlong towards “the teeth of the abyss”, in the words of Neruda, one of his favorite authors. The strength is tremendous, but the rhythm is almost always calm, using different styles, almost contradictory literary forms. Everything is thought out and weighed, with no unnecessary metaphor or analogy, no overwrought semantic associations, which in the end, he thinks, turn poetry into an intolerable exercise in confectionery.” (p.6)
“Alfonso Vallejo, a great poet, is no lover of poetry as abstraction.” (p.7)
“In another book, we situated his poetry in the universal context and considered it to be one of the strongest voices. This was years ago now, and nobody has dared refute the claim. We have dug into the roots of his creations and the different forms of expression. Thus, we will not limit ourselves this time in the analysis of Time Silence and Truth to the context of contemporary Spanish or European literature. However, this book is a turning point, a turn upwards - hermeneutic but also existential - that marks a new interpretation of reality and a radical revision of life lived and the life left to live.” (p.7)
“The themes of hunger, violence, demographic explosions, the historical chronicle, philosophical investigation, ruptures of language, changes in rhythm, scientific and astronomical teachings, etc. The mark of the French appears together with the German stamp. 41 years have passed since the book was written and the author has been ceaselessly active, and Time Silence and Truth not only condenses and develops what was broached in previous works, but also shows a new twist when it had been thought the conceptual and expressive character of his work had reached the highest degree of tension - tension, in the sense of tense, tightened, but also in that of exaltation, outburst, zealousness, excitation. But always with a controlled rhythm, that gives the feeling like that of traveling in a high class car, in which, thanks to the precise working of its components, the bumpiness a road might have is not perceptible.” (p. 8)
“The great scholar of literary theory Tzvetan Todorov analysed in his last book, The Totalitarian Experience, the utility of memory and the role of justice through reflections on thinkers and events in recent history, and Alfonso Vallejo’s creative and investigative activity has followed the same line of development for many years.
As stated at the beginning, Time Silence and Truth is a turning point in Vallejo’s unstoppable run, not only in the author’s personal trajectory but also in the modern poetic panorama. It is a complex book that encompasses multiple variations to produce a coherent whole. Here the author’s personality is sculpted in flesh and blood: his self-demands, his visionariness, his attitude of unbribable ethics, his resolute defense against the offenses of life. The author may relax; he has transmitted and expressed the result of his investigation of and inquiry into the most universal conflicts of our time and the most personal problems of the individual. In the face of modern pessimism, the only thing pessimistic in Vallejo is hygienic, orthopedic, therapeutic. As always, and with more intensity than ever, Vallejo gives us a direction, a course, a compass point, a point of light: faith in life.” (p.28)
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25.- “La luz y la oscuridad ”. Edition and prologue by Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo. Publisher Huerga y Fierro. Madrid 2012.
Book Cover :Oil painting by Alfonso Vallejo. 110 by 81. “La luz y la oscuridad”
Edition and prologue by Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo
To read "La luz y la oscuridad " click HERE
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26.- “Ser, cerebro y realidad”. Edition and prologue by Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo. Publisher Huerga y Fierro. Madrid 2012.
Book Cover :Oil painting by Alfonso Vallejo. 110 by 81. “Ser, cerebro y realidad”
Edition and prologue by Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo.
To read "Ser, cerebro y realidad" click HERE
To read the prologue of Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo click HERE