Cuaderno verde del Che. (Che's Green Notebook)
Reviewed by Salwa Jabado, New York City -- Críticas, 2/5/2008
Guevara, Ernesto Che.
Spain/U.S.: Seix Barral: Planeta. 2007. 184p. ISBN 978-970-74-9061-1. pap. $19. POETRY
Among Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara’s possessions the day of his capture was a green notebook filled with poetry. This notebook, guarded by the Bolivian military, eventually went missing, and a photocopy landed in the hands of Mexican writer, Taibo. Familiar with Guevara’s handwriting from authoring his biography Ernesto Guevara, también conocido como el Che, (Ernesto Guevara: Also Known as Che, Planeta, 1996), Taibo authenticated the poems. Without titles or authors’ names, they were at first thought to be Che's poetry. However, further scrutiny revealed that the notebook was a personal anthology, of Che's design, with 69 poems by contemporaries Pablo Neruda, León Felipe, and Nicolás Guillén as well as César Vallejo. While the poems themselves are widely available—from Neruda's Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (which Che knew by heart) and Vallejo's Trilce, among others—what fascinates here is their import in the revolutionary's life. Why copy these poems and not others? Why these authors? Speculating about what these poems meant to Che as he copied them down in the last years of his life is half the excitement of this collection. The other is his great taste in poetry. Filled with dark political poems like Neruda's "Explico algunas cosas" ("I Explain a Few Things") and some surprising poems about the American Civil Rights movement, it also includes love poems and elegies, notably to Federico García Lorca. Taibo rounds out the anthology with six short prologs that tell the story of the notebook and some information on Che and poetry. Of interest to Che scholars and casual readers alike, this volume is recommended for all libraries and bookstores.
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