Ernesto Cardenal – författare

In 1898 Tahirassawichi went to Washington"only to speak about religion"(as he told the American government)only to preserve the prayers.And the Capitol did not impress him."—from "Tahirassawichi in Washington" Ernesto Cardenal, Nicaraguan poet, priest, and revolutionary, foresees a new order for humanity. Here in his Indian poems, Father Cardenal interweaves myth, legend, history, and contemporary reality to speak to many subjects, including the assaults on the Iroquois Nation, the political and cultural life of ancient Mexico, the Ghost Dance movement, the disappearance of the buffalo, U.S. policy during the Vietnam War, and human rights in Central America. Each text is rich with history, poetry, and spiritual insight.This bilingual edition is the only complete collection of Father Cardenal's Indian poems in either Spanish or English. Cardenal has checked and approved the translations and the glossary of cultural and historical referents."Of epic proportions . . . The literal translation conveys the epigrammic style and didactic, political message. . . . Of timely interest." —Library Journal"Priest and Nicaraguan revolutionary as well as poet, Cardenal epitomizes what makes literature live in Central America today. His poems are both sonorous and accessible, political and mystical." —Booklist" . . . a spectacular work . . ." —Books of the South West

" . . . very well translated . . . Cardenal merits praise for presenting, on such an ambitious scale, a passionate alternative history of the Spanish encounter with Central America." —Booklist"Combining hsitory with poetry, Cardenal exposes the violence, treachery, injustice, and exploitation that are so much a part of [Central America and Mexico's] past and present." —World Literature Today"Explore this dense, beautiful poem and you will be rewarded with riches that 'delight and hurt not'." —Nicaragua Update". . . a remarkable text. . . . El estrecho dudoso is a masterful and compelling poetic account of early colonial Central America, and the translation is likewise masterful." —Colonial Latin American Historical ReviewIn this book-length poem, Nicaraguan priest and revolutionary Ernesto Cardenal tells the story of the Spanish conquest of Central America from the "discovery" of the American continent to recent historical events. A remarkable achievement and an engrossing narrative, the poem is published here in both Spanish and English.

Cardenal, In Cuba. The Nicaraguan Poet-Priest muses over Cuba

Apocalypse and Other Poems by Nicaragua’s revolutionist poet-priest, Ernesto Cardenal, is the author’s second book, the first of poetry, to be published by New Directions. The editors of this volume, Robert Pring-Mill and Donald D. Walsh, have chosen a representative selection of Cardenal’s shorter protest poems, epigrams, religious, and Amerindian verse. Also included are two of Cardenal’s most impressive longer works: the haunting and melodic elegy, “Coplas on the Death of Merton,” and the title poem, “Apocalypse,” in which the theme of an ever-threatening nuclear holocaust is the core of a modern rendering of the Book of Revelations. At Our Lady of Solentiname, his religious community on an island in Lake Nicaragua, living and working in the manner of the early Christians, Father Cardenal embodies what he professes: “Now in Latin America, to practice religion is to make revolution.” An informative introduction has been contributed by Robert Pring-Mill of Oxford University. The translations are by Thomas Merton, Robert Pring-Mill, Kenneth Rexroth and Mireya Jaimes-Freyre, and Donald D. Walsh, who also translated In Cuba, Cardenal’s assessment of Fidel Castro’s revolutionary society, published by New Directions in 1974.

Zero Hour and Other Documentary Poems brings together in English translation eight of the longer poems by Nicaragua’s impassioned Marxist priest, Ernesto Cardenal, described in the Times Literary Supplement as “the outstanding socially committed poet of his generation in Spanish America.” His work, like Pablo Neruda’s, is unabashedly political; like Ezra Pound’s, his poems demonstrate history on an epic scale––but the voice is all his own and speaks from the heart of a land sunk for generations in poverty, oppression, and turmoil. As both activist and contemplative, Cardenal maintained strong ties with the Sandinist guerillas while at the same time living a form of primitive Christianity at his religious settlement of Our Lady of Solentiname on an island in Lake Nicaragua. In late 1977, amid increasing civil violence, the Nicaraguan National Guard utterly destroyed the Solentiname community, and Cardenal fled to neighboring Costa Rica, where he continued his efforts on behalf of the revolutionary movement. With the final collapse of the Somoza dictatorship in 1979, he returned to Nicaragua as his country’s new Minister of Culture. Spanning a quarter century, the poems in Zero Hour constitute a vivid record of continuous struggle against flagrant exploitation and brutal indifference to common humanity.

Thomas Merton and Ernesto Cardenal were both poets and priests, wholly committed to a life of spiritual contemplation which was never far from the gritty work that lead them to risk life and reputation in order to raise worldwide consciousness concerning issues of social justice and the abuse of human rights. From the Monastery to the World collects the complete correspondence between these spiritual men and dedicated activists, translated into English for the first time. The letters in this book, written between Merton and Cardenal from 1959-1968, give us fascinating insights into the early spiritual and political awakenings of eventual Sandinista and exponent of liberation theology Ernesto Cardenal, who was then a novice leaving the Trappist Monastery in Kentucky where he first met Merton. While making the long trip home to Nicaragua to build a utopian artist’s commune on the Island of Solentiname, Cardenal rubs elbows with some of Latin America’s greatest writers and artists of that time. In From the Monastery to the World, Cardenal is still a hungry pupil, years away from becoming the internationally renowned poet-statesman and Nicaraguan Minister of Culture. Here we see the poet and monk Thomas Merton as a wise, patient, and sometimes even humbled mentor, during the years when he was still shaping and collecting the raw materials for such writings as: “The Way of Chuang Tzu”, “Raids on the Unspeakable”, and “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”.Merton and Cardenal’s correspondence grants readers an audience to conversations between two men deeply connected by their vigorous endeavors toward spiritual freedom, voracious intellectual appetites, and artistic exploration despite the cultural differences, language barriers, and geographic distances which divide them.

La poesía norteamericana es una poesía vinculada a la naturaleza, tanto la naturaleza salvaje como la domesticada, descriptiva de la vida rural y la urbana, y de la sociedad industrializada. Una poesía casi siempre realista, de la vida diaria y lo cotidiano, también narrativa y anecdótica, coloquial, generalmente, con el lenguaje de todos, concreta y directa.También lo más característico es el ser americana, de esa realidad nueva del Nuevo Mundo, de algo distinto a lo europeo. Su originalidad ha sido la vinculación con la naturaleza y, a veces, la convivencia con lo salvaje. Estas traducciones podrán enriquecer mucho la poesía latinoamericana. Incluso podrían contribuir a estrechar más la unión de los pueblos de las dos Américas.

Canto a México envuelve al lector en los maravillosos orígenes del pueblo mesoamericano con cantos sobre Nezahualcóyotl, Tlamatinimes y Quetzalcóatl. Gracias a su deseo de encontrar y observar las raíces que atraviesan la posibilidad de ser olvidadas, conjuga la grandeza de los tronos mesoamericanos, simbólicos y literales, con la delicadeza de las flores y colores y con el diálogo poético. Debido a su conocimiento teológico y a su pensamiento revolucionario, el autor transmite la vida fantástica de los pueblos antiguos con una deconstrucción representativa de imágenes y nostalgias, enaltecedoras y místicas

En la larga vida del poeta nicaragüense Ernesto Cardenal (1925-2020) cupieron varias vocaciones que le ayudaron a templar su ideario de cómo la acción del espíritu cambia el mundo. Luce López Baralt afirma que es "uno de los más altos poetas contemporáneos de la lengua española, un místico que se hizo revolucionario por amor al Reino", también escultor, sacerdote de la teología de la liberación—suspendido por Juan Pablo II y rehabilitado por el papa Francisco—, ministro de Cultura sandinista y fundador de una comunidad contemplativa en la isla de Solentiname que acogía a pobres. La obra de Cardenal está llena de amor al ser humano, por eso recuperamos en su centenario estas Prosas dispersas, la mayoría inéditas. A través de breves ensayos, crónicas y textos autobiográficos profundizamos en la relación de ciencia y espíritu; lo místico y lo cósmico, maestros como Lao Tse, Heráclito o su mentor Thomas Merton; poetas como Rubén Darío o Neruda y pasajes que evocan la utopía de Solentiname. El libro incluye un código QR que permite acceder a pódcast del artista Niño de Elche versionando musicalmente textos de Cardenal, además de entrevistas.

Sacerdote católico, poeta y escultor comprometido políticamente con los conflictos sociales de su país, Nicaragua, Ernesto Cardenal experimentó en 1956 una conversión espiritual que cambió su vida para siempre. Tras entrar en contacto con Thomas Merton y escribir uno de sus poemarios fundamentales, fundó la comunidad contemplativa de Solentiname, ubicada en el archipiélago del mismo nombre e inspirada en el proyecto evangelizador que le propone Merton durante su estancia en la Trapa. Esta obra, Vida en el amor, es considerada la cima de su obra mística. El mensaje que contiene se vuelve, tras su muerte y las circunstancias históricas que atraviesa la humanidad, especialmente necesario.