The Romantic Dogs

The legend that has developed around Bolaño since his death in 2003 largely hangs on his phenomenally successful novels, but with the author himself professing to prefer his poetry to his prose, this bilingual collection of 44 poems is a welcome introduction to Bolaño the poet.

This is not to say, though, that Bolaño the novelist is not present in this collection of surreal, ingenious, and poignant poems. The Borgesian intellect and narrative strength that characterize much of his prose are retained, but are deftly balanced with emotional pitch and heady nostalgia. This sense of longing haunts every poem and reverberates in the poems that address not only his own youth but also the youthful innocence of Latin America; indeed, the political disillusionment of a youth both lived and lost looms in the background of many poems, and is brought to the fore in a few select poems.

Groups of dreamlike images and recurring themes bind this eclectic collection of poems together with cinematic ease. Characters move fluidly from poem to poem, bringing with them images of scraggily-armed trees, worms, bleeding rain, and clouds like pink-smiling cats. Longer narrative poems sit beside shorter, choppier ones, but both experiment playfully with enjambment and structure, the effects of which Laura Healy effortlessly translates into English.