Roque Dalton
Poet, essayist, and journalist Roque Dalton grew up in San Salvador, El Salvador. His father was one of the members of the outlaw Dalton brothers and his mother was a registered nurse whose salary supported the family. He studied at the University of Santiago, Chile, and the University of San Salvador. His poetry collections include El Mar/The Sea (1962), El turno del ofendido/The Injured Party’s Turn (1962), La Ventana en el rostro/The Window in My Face (1961), and Taberna y otros lugares/Tavern and Other Places (1969), winner of the Casa de las Américas poetry prize. As a member of a revolutionary army, a communist, and a political exile, Dalton lived in Mexico, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, Cuba, and Prague, where he worked as a correspondent for The International Review: Problems of Peace and Socialism. Arrested in 1959, 1960, and 1965, he escaped execution multiple times throughout his life (learn more here). He was ultimately executed on May 10, 1975, just a few days before he would have turned 40 years old. Source
Like You
Like you I
love love, life, the sweet smell
of things, the sky-blue
landscape of January days.
And my blood boils up
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the buds of tears.
I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.
And that my veins don’t end in me
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.
Published:
2000
Length:
Shorty
Literary Movements:
Committed Generation
Anthology Years:
2025
Themes:
Ars Poetica
Bilingual
Faith & Hope
Poems of the Everyday
Politics
Strength & Resilience
Literary Devices:
Alliteration
the repetition of the same letter or sound at the beginning of words appearing in succession
Asyndeton
the absence of a conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so…) between phrases and within a sentence
Enjambment
a line break interrupting the middle of a phrase which continues on to the next line
Interrupted Clause
a word group (a statement, question, or exclamation) that interrupts the flow of a sentence and is usually set off by commas, dashes, or parentheses
Sensory Detail
words used to invoke the five senses (vision, hearing, taste, touch, smell)
Simile
a comparison between two unlike things using the words “like” or “as”