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escape from the world, but a way to pin your-
self to the present. Even the most hermetic of
poets anchors you to your time more strongly.
A great poem is like a washing machine, with
a lot of ground wire.
LFG: The one I was most dazzled by was
the early Miguel Hernández, who wrote like
Góngora without realizing it. With a plastic-
ity and rhythmic harmony, archaic, yes, but
beautiful.
AL: He was extraordinary, with that sparkle
of the greatest Baroque poets. An intuitive type.
Poetry was his original substance and his tem-
perament. The most popular Miguel Hernán-
dez is the one of the battlefield, because he
lived as he did and the details of his biography
make him more emotive, perhaps more com-
mercial. But there’s also a Miguel Hernández
who was powerfully lyrical, inspired, even
abstract, which is another form of poetry in
action, coming from pure intuition.
LFG: On the other hand, when you are very
young, you like love poems, naturally. Many
verses by Salinas or Aleixandre that I can no
longer bring myself to re-read revolve around
the theme of love.
AL: This is where architecture and poetry
part ways: the former is a craft that develops
over a long time, the latter is a mark of youth.
What’s rare is a 70-year-old poet writing with
the intensity that some have shown in old age:
the Aleixandre of Poems of Consummation,
the Caballero Bonald of Manual de infracto-
res, the mature Gamoneda... If poetry has its
spark plug in a young ‘metabolism,’ old poets
happily run contrary to nature. It’s fabulous.
LFG: Well, José Hierro’s last book has some
very gripping verses that you do not expect
from a person of his age and circumstances.
AL: For sure. There’s a sonnet in that book,
titled New York Notebook, which goes:
“After all, all has been nothing,
even though one day it was all.
After nothing, or after all
I knew that all was only nothing.”
