Border of a Dream: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado

Machado was born in Seville one year after his brother Manuel. The family moved to Madrid in 1883 and both brothers enrolled in the Institución Libre de Enseñanza. During these years, and with the encouragement of his teachers, Antonio discovered his passion for literature. While completing his Bachillerato in Madrid, economic difficulties forced him to take several jobs including working as an actor. In 1899 he and his brother traveled to Paris to work as translators for a French publisher. During these months in Paris he came into contact with the great French Symbolist poets Jean Moréas, Paul Fort and Paul Verlaine, and also with other contemporary literary figures, including Rubén Darío and Oscar Wilde. These encounters cemented Machado's decision to dedicate himself to poetry.In 1901 he had his first poems published in the literary journal, Electra. His first book of poetry was published in 1903 with the title Soledades. Over the next few years he gradually amended the collection, removing some and adding many more, and in 1907 the definitive collection was published with the title Soledades. Galerías. Otros Poemas. In the same year Machado was offered the job of Professor of French at the school in Soria. Here he met Leonor Izquierdo, daughter of the owners of the boarding house Machado was staying in. They were married in 1909: he was 34; Leonor was 16. Early in 1911 the couple went to live in Paris where Machado read more French literature and studied philosophy. In the summer, however, Leonor was diagnosed with advanced tuberculosis and they returned to Spain. On 1 August 1912 Leonor died, just a few weeks after the publication of Campos de Castilla. Machado was devastated and left Soria, the city that had inspired the poetry of Campos, never to return. He went to live in Baeza, Andalucia, where he stayed until 1919. Here he wrote a series of poems dealing with the death of Leonor which were added to a new (and now definitive) edition of Campos de Castilla published in 1916 along with the first edition of Nuevas canciones.While his earlier poems are in an ornate, Modernist style, with the publication of Campos de Castilla he showed an evolution toward greater simplicity, a characteristic that was to distinguish his poetry from then on.Between 1919 and 1931 Machado was Professor of French at the Instituto de Segovia, in Segovia. He moved here to be nearer to Madrid, where Manuel lived. The brothers would meet at weekends to work together on a number of plays, the performances of which earned them great popularity. It was here also that Antonio had a secret affair with Pilar Valderrama, a married woman with three children, to whom he would refer in his work by the name Guiomar. In 1932 he was given the post of professor at the Instituto Calderón de la Barca in Madrid.When the Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936, Machado was in Madrid. The war was to separate him forever from his brother Manuel who was trapped in the Nationalist (Francoist) zone, and from Valderrama who was in Portugal. Machado was evacuated with his elderly mother and uncle to Valencia, and then to Barcelona in 1938. Finally, as Franco closed in on the last Republican strongholds, they were obliged to move across the French border to Collioure. It was here, on 22 February 1939, that Antonio Machado died, just three days before his mother. In his pocket was found his last poem, "Estos días azules y este sol de infancia". Machado is buried in Collioure where he died; Leonor is buried in Soria.(Biography from Wikipedia.)

Willis Barnstone, professor, poet, and scholar, is the author of eighty volumes, including The Restored New Testament, The Gnostic Bible, The Poems of Jesus Christ, The Poetics of Translation, and Mexico in My Heart: New and Selected Poems. He lives in Oakland, California, and Paris.