The Complete Poems of San Juan de la Cruz

by María Baranda (Translator), Paul Hoover (Translator)

Overview

María Baranda and Paul Hoover present revitalized translations of some of the most beloved poems of the Golden Age of Spanish literature.

In 1578, during months of imprisonment for his reformist beliefs, San Juan de la Cruz composed a series of narrative poems inspired by the Biblical Song of Songs—and, the story goes, a popular love song overheard from his cramped cell—that take God as the beloved. Erotically charged, initially scandalous, his mystical poetry engages with the journey of the soul through the darkest trenches of suffering and despair toward an enlightened spiritual connection with God. For hundreds of years, these poems have resonated deeply with those who search for meaning in the dark, and have influenced generations of poets, artists, and philosophers.

This bilingual edition of the Complete Poems—including “Dark Night” and both the Sanlúcar and Jaén manuscripts of “Spiritual Canticle”—presents an intimate and exceptionally collaborative new translation from María Baranda and Paul Hoover. Baranda, one of the most distinguished Mexican poets of her generation, lends her deft hand with expansive, meditative poetry. Hoover—the accomplished American poet, editor, and translator—offers his dexterity with form and the possibilities of language. The product is uniquely faithful to image and idea, and loyal to the ecstatic lyricism of this canonical text.

A volume that hums with the soul’s longing to find solace, The Complete Poems of San Juan de la Cruz is a collection to be treasured. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781571314918
Publisher:	Milkweed Editions
Publication date:	04/13/2021
Pages:	120
Sales rank:	1,082,009
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

María Baranda is a winner of major literary awards in Mexico, the Aguascalientes National Poetry Prize and the Efrain Huerta National Poetry Prize, as well as Spain’s Francisco de Quevedo Prize for Ibero-American Poetry. Her collections of poems include Narrar, Atlántica y el rústico, Avido mundo, Ficticia and El mar insuficiente: poemas 1989-2009 (translated into English by Joshua Edwards), and Yegua nocturna corriendo en un prado de luz absoluta (translated into English by Paul Hoover).

Paul Hoover is the author of collections of poems including The Book of Unnamed Things, Desolation: Souvenir, Sonnet 56, Edge and Fold, and Poems in Spanish, which was nominated for a Bay Area Book Award. He is editor of Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology and coeditor of the literary magazine New American Writing. He teaches creative writing at San Francisco State University.

Read an Excerpt

Noche Oscura

Canciones del alma que se goza de haber llegado al alto estado de perfección, que es la unión con Dios, por el camino de la negación espiritual

En una noche oscura,
con ansias en amores inflamada,
¡oh dichosa ventura!,
salí sin ser notada,
estando ya mi casa sosegada.

A escuras, y segura,
por la secreta escala disfrazada,
¡oh, dichosa ventura!,
a escuras, y en celada,
estando ya mi casa sosegada.

En la noche dichosa,
en secreto, que nadie me veía,
ni yo miraba cosa,
sin otra luz y guía,
sino la que en el corazón ardía.

Aquesta me guiaba más cierto que la luz del mediodía,
a donde me esperaba,
quien yo bien me sabía,
en parte donde nadie parecía.

¡Oh noche, que guiaste!,
¡oh noche amable más que el alborada!,
¡oh noche, que juntaste
Amado con amada,
amada en el Amado transformada!

En mi pecho florido,
que entero para él solo se guardaba,
allí quedó dormido,
y yo le regalaba,
y el ventalle de cedros aire daba.

El aire de la almena,
cuando yo sus cabellos esparcía,
con su mano serena en mi cuello hería,
y todos mis sentidos suspendía.

Quedéme, y olvidéme,
el rostro recliné sobre el Amado;
cesó todo, y dejéme,
dejando mi cuidado,
entre las azucenas olvidado.


Dark Night

Songs of the Soul in Its Pleasure at Having Reached the High State of Perfection, Which Is the Union with God, on the Path of Spiritual Denial

On a dark night,
anxious, by love inflamed,
oh, what good fortune!,
I left without being noticed,
my house already at rest.

In the dark, and secure,
disguised by a secret ladder,
oh, what good fortune!,
dark and hidden,
my house already at rest.

In the blissful night,
in secret, where no one could see me,
nor could I see a thing,
with neither light nor guide,
except the one who burned in my heart.

That is what guided me more truly than the light of noon,
where he awaited me,
the one who knew me well,
where there seemed to be no one.

Oh night, you guide me!,
oh night kinder than the dawn!,
oh night that joined
Beloved with beloved,
beloved in the Beloved transformed!

On my flowering breast,
reserved only for him,
there he fell asleep and I gave him the gift,
and the breeze of the cedars blew.

When I ruffled his hair,
with its serene hand the air of the battlement wounded my neck and all my senses were suspended.

I remained me and forgot me,
I lowered my face to the Beloved;
everything ceased and I left myself,
leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.

Table of Contents

San Juan de la Cruz

The Life 8

The Poetry 13

Translators' Note 23

The Complete Poems of San Juan de la Cruz

Noche oscura 28

Dark Night 29

Cántico espiritual (redacción del manuscrito de Sanlúcar) 32

Spiritual Canticle (Sanlúcar manuscript) 33

Cántico espiritual (redactión del manuscrito de Jaén) 50

Spiritual Canticle (Jaén manuscript) 51

Llama de amor viva 68

Flame of Living Love 69

Coplas del mismo hechas sobre un éxtasis de alta contemplación 72

Songs Written in an Ecstasy of High Contemplation 73

Coplas del alma que pena por ver a Dios 78

Songs of the Soul That Aches to See God 79

Otras del mismo a lo divino 84

Other Verses to the Divine 85

Otras canciones a lo divino de Cristo y el alma 88

Other Songs to the Divinity of Christ and the Soul 89

Cantar del alma que se huelga de conocer a Dios por fe 90

Song of the Soul that Rejoices in the Knowledge of God through Faith 91

Romances 94

Romances 95

Sobre el Evangelio "In principle erat Verbum" acerca de la Santísimu Trinidad 94

Concerning the Gospel "In the Beginning Was the Verb" with Regard to the Holy Trinity 95

De la comunicación de las Tres Personas 98

Of the Communication of the Three Persons 99

De la Creación 100

Of the Creation 101

Prosigue (-Hágase, pues-dijo el Padre) 102

It Continues (-Let it be then-said the Father) 103

Prosigue (Con esta bucna esperanza) 108

It Continues (With this good hope) 109

Prosigue (En aquestos y orros ruegos) 110

It Continues (In these and other entreaties) 111

Prosigue la Encarnación 112

The Incarnation Continues 113

Prosigue (Entonces Ilamó a un arcángel) 116

It Continues (Then he called an archangel) 117

Del Nacimiento 118

Of the Birth 119

Otro del mismo que va por "Super flumina Babilonis" 122

By the Waters of Babylon 123

Glosas a lo divino (Sin arrimo y con arrimo) 128

Glosses on the Divine (With and without support) 129

Glosa a lo clivino del mismo autur (Por toda la hermosura) 132

Gloss on the Divine (For all that's beautiful) 133

Del Verbo divino 138

Of the Divine Verb 139

Suma de la perfección 140

The Sum of Perfection 141

Monte de perfección 142

The Mount of Perfection 143

Acknowledgments 145

Editorial Reviews

06/21/2021

Barada and Hoover bring the work of a poet “consumed completely” to English readers in a satisfying collection that was inspired by the Bible’s Song of Songs and is full of figures given over to a love charged with a near-erotic and mystic constancy. In poems that remind the reader of John Donne’s fierce, unbridled devotion, mingled with John Keats’s romanticism, people “suffer, grieve, and die” at the various altars of love. “Love alone,” a wife in one poem says, “is my task.” That love is pitched toward the divine throughout. “This life,” de la Cruz writes of God, “is endless dying/ until I live with you.” The collection invites the acceptance of mystery ushered by the intoxicating work of devotion; as one poem attests: “Love does such work.” It allows a world where “not knowing is knowing.” While de la Cruz can verge on the sentimental, he does so to express an honest form of feeling. This is a satisfying book of extremes, where men “die because don’t die” and risks are taken to capture complex feelings. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Complete Poems of San Juan de la Cruz

“This is a gorgeously presented book with equally stunning verse.”—The Millions, “Must-Read Poetry of April 2021”

 “In poems that remind the reader of John Donne’s fierce, unbridled devotion, mingled with John Keats’s romanticism, people ‘suffer, grieve, and die’ at the various altars of love . . . The collection invites the acceptance of mystery ushered by the intoxicating work of devotion.” —Publishers Weekly

 “In St. John of the Cross’s poetry, the dark night is also a night of profound, even ecstatic beauty . . . This new edition thrills with the adventure of it all—the soul’s adventure, Juan’s adventure. You can feel Juan’s delight in his newfound freedom, even in the midst of tremendous uncertainty.”—Amy Frykholm, The Christian Century

 “I was so impressed by [The Complete Poems of San Juan de la Cruz] . . . [A]  revelatory new translation.”—Sharon Mesmer, Commonweal Magazine

 “These sixteenth-century poems are gathered together and given a new, contemporary voice through poets María Baranda and Paul Hoover’s co-translation . . . This is the liberatory power of retranslating classic poets: the opportunity to read differently, on top of or alongside other readings—to provide new shades of meaning, and allow other elements of the poems to shine through.”—Gabriella Martin, Action Books blog

From the Publisher