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About this Item
Title: Poetas del futuro
Author(s): Walt Whitman, Leandro Wolfson
Date: 1976
Whitman Archive ID: med.00510
Source: "Poetas del futuro." Hojas de Hierba. Biblioteca de Poesía Universal. Selección, traducción y notas de Leandro Wolfson. Tr. Leandro Wolfson (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Librerías Fausto, 1976), 28. Transcribed from a digital image of a print original. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of translations, see our statement of editorial policy.
Editorial note(s): This edition features "Poets to Come" in both Spanish and English. The English version follows the Spanish and is presented in paragraph form with line breaks marked by slashes. Transcriptions of both the English and Spanish versions are included here. Wolfson's translation is based on the final form of the poem as it appeared in Leaves of Grass. For more on Wolfson's translation, see Matt Cohen, Nicole Gray, and Rey Rocha, "'Poets to Come': An Introduction to the Spanish Translations."
Contributors to digital file: Elizabeth Lorang, Rey Rocha, Vanessa Steinroetter, and Janel Cayer
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POETAS DEL FUTURO
¡Poetas del futuro! ¡Oradores, cantantes, músicos del futuro!
No será el presente el que me justifique y responda por mí,
Sino vosotros, la nueva raza autóctona, atlética, continental,
mayor que todas las conocidas,
mayor que todas las conocidas,
¡Arriba!, que vosotros debéis justificarme.
Yo apenas dejo escritas una o dos palabras indicativas para
el porvenir,
el porvenir,
Me adelanto un instante y en seguida vuelvo rodando a la
oscuridad.
oscuridad.
Soy un hombre que, sin detenerse en su vagabundeo, os lanza
una fugaz mirada y luego aparta el rostro,
una fugaz mirada y luego aparta el rostro,
Dejándola en vosotros para que la experimentéis y defináis,
Aguardando de vosotros lo principal.
POETS TO COME
Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come! / Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for, / But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known, / Arouse! for you must justify me!
I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future, / I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.
I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a casual look upon you and then averts his face, / Leaving it to you to prove and define it, / Expecting the main things from you.