PRELUDE IN BORICUA LUIS PALÉS MATOS

Williams, William Carlos . In The Collected Poems Of William Carlos Williams Volume II 1939–1962 ,
Williams, William Carlos,  45-46. New York: 1986.

ProQuest document link

FULL TEXT

[63]
1  Mixup of kinkhead and high yaller
2  And other big time mixups.
3  Messaround of voodoo chatter
4  Where their warm black bodies
5  Loosen the savage conga.

6  With crowing of the maraca

7  And heavy grunt of the gongo
8  The island curtain goes up on
9  An aristocracy macaca
10  Based in trip and corn pone.

11  To the solemn haitian God-be-praised

12  Is opposed the rumba habanera
13  With its angular hips and shoulders
14  While the cuban negrito
15  Takes on his hot-foot mulatta.

16  From her jamboree, taking the trail,

17  Flies Cuba, all sails set
18  To gather on her haunches
19  The golden tourist Niagara.

20  (Tomorrow they'll be shareholders

21  In some sugar mill
22  And take over with the money ...)

23  And in whatever corner—lot, bay,

24  Pier or cane-field—
25  The negro drinks his cold portion

PDF GENERATED BY SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 1 of 4

26  Consoled by the melody
27  That springs from his own bowels.

28  Jamaica, the heavy tub-of-guts

29  Switches her lingo to guts enough.
30  Santo Domingo dolls herself up
31  And with imposing civic gesture
32  Stirs her heroic genius
33  To a hundred presidential odes.
34  With her tray of penny candy
35  And white magic eyes
36  Comes Haiti to the market.
37  The Windward Islands are made up
38  Of overwhelming disgusts
39  To astonish the cyclones
40  With their fly-swatter palm trees.

41  And Puerto Rico? My burning island

42  For thee all has indeed ended.
43  Among the shambles of a continent
44  Puerto Rico, lugubriously
45  You bleat like a roast goat.

46  Mixup of black boy and high yaller,

47  This book to your hands
48  With ingredients from the Antilles
49  Sum up a day ...

50  ... and in short, lost time,

51  that leaves me heavy headed.
52  Something drawn out or reported,
53  Little really lived
54  And much of pretension and hearsay.

NOTES
[63]
PRELUDE IN BORICUA American Prefaces (Winter 1942). WCW published a “note” with the poem: “This not-to-be-
called translation of Matos' introductory poem from the collection Tuntún de Pasa y Griferí [Puerto Rico, 1937] is
offered with profound apologies to the poet. It is no more than an approximate translation which makes no
attempt to give the musical sense of the original. Some of the words cannot be rendered in English at all.... The

PDF GENERATED BY SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 2 of 4

mood is West Indian, as are the words which portray the mood. Poemas Afroantillanos is what Matos calls them.”
The “note” continues with biographical information on the poet.
Boricua is a corruption of the old native name for Puerto Rico.

DETAILS

Publication title: The Collected Poems Of William Carlos Williams Volume II 1939–1962

Pages: 45-46

Publication date: 1986

Publication year: 1986

Publisher/Imprint: New Directions

Physical description: 553 p.

Place of publication: New York

Country of publication: New York

Series: Literature Online - Twentieth-Century American Poetry

Publication subject: Literature

Source type: Books

Language of publication: English

ISBN: 978-0-8112-1063-8

Document type: Book Chapter, Poem

Publication note: Preliminaries omitted.

Accession number: J4013100

ProQuest document ID: 2153790536

Document URL: http://search.proquest.com.ezp-

prod1.hul.harvard.edu/docview/2153790536?accountid=11311

PDF GENERATED BY SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 3 of 4

 Copyright: Copyright 1944, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953 by William Carlos Williams:
Copyright © 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1959, 1960, 1961 and 1962 by William Carlos
Williams: Copyright 1946 by New Directions: Copyright © 1958, 1959 by Florence H.
Williams: Copyright © 1963 by the Estate of William Carlos Williams: Copyright ©
1966 by Florence H. Williams and David Rafael Wang: Copyright © 1967 by Mrs.
William Carlos Williams: Copyright © 1973 by Florence H. Williams and Octavio Paz:
Copyright © 1988 by William Eric Williams and Paul H. Williams: Copyright © 1988 by
Christopher MacGowan

Database: Twentieth-Century American Poetry,Literature Online

LINKS
Linking Service

Database copyright  2020 ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved.

Terms and Conditions Contact ProQuest

PDF GENERATED BY SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 4 of 4