Roberto was chosen as winner of several prizes with poems included in this book:
—Rafael Morales Prize, Talavera de la Reina, 1992, with “Fragments of the Unknown University.”
—City of Irún Literary Prize, 1994, with “The Romantic Dogs.”
The section of The Unknown University called “People Walking Away,” was already published by Roberto, with small variations, as Antwerp by Anagrama in 2002.
Roberto wrote all of his poetry by hand, usually in notebooks. In them you can find practically all of the poems, some with different titles.
The original Antwerp, for example, is contained in the notebook “Narrations 1980” as “The Little Hunchback.” After that version, a typed version was found without title or date, but which can be dated to the year 1983 or 1984, based on the typewriter used.
The original for the part called “Prose for Autumn in Gerona” is found in a notebook with poems and writing spanning the years 1981 to 1984. Another version of this material was also found with the name “Prose from Autumn in Gerona or The Immaculate Grave, first version.”
Regarding the year in which the different poems were written, Roberto has already indicated in his note to this edition the years in which they were created. A meticulous study of his notebooks adds more information:
The first section corresponds in large part to the years 1979 and 1980. They are texts that form part of the notebooks “Diary I,” “Diary II,” and “Diary III,” dated with those years, and also three other untitled notebooks dated October and November 1980.
The second part is composed of poems from the notebook “Narrations 1980,” the same untitled notebooks containing poems from the first part, and another notebook called “Poetry, October 1990,” which contains poems dated 1993 and 1994. That said, the great majority of poems correspond to the years between 1980 and 1984.
Finally, the third part almost entirely contains poems written in notebooks dated between 1987 and 1994.
The origin of the title The Unknown University is clarified for us by Roberto himself in the poem “Between Friedrich von Hausen . . .”: “Dear Alfred Bester [science fiction writer, New York 1913–Pennsylvania 1987], at least I’ve found one of the wings of the Unknown University!”
Thank you.
CAROLINA LÓPEZ
Index of English titles
“According to Alain Resnais” 45
“After a dream” 455
“A happy ending” 787
“All the stores were closed today” 223
Among the Horses 325
Angels 119
Another Morning at Estrella de Mar Campground 251
Antwerp 417
“A person caresses you, teases you” 501
Applause 409
“A Tao . . . A Tao . . . Our little Darío” 205
“At 4 a.m. old photographs of Lisa” 17
Atole 657
“Autumn in Gerona” 477
“A woman — I ought to say a stranger —” 449
“A woman’s voice says she loves” 87
Bar, The 331
Barcelona Afternoons 287
Barcelona Scene, A 231
“Beautiful unremembered moments” 197
Bend, The 243
“Between Friedrich von Hausen” 285
Big Silver Waves 395
“Blood coagulated on horizontal glass” 105
Blue 313
Bruno Montané Turns Thirty 567
Bum, The 401
Calle Tallers 379
“Call the boss and tell him” 513
Chilean Poetry Is a Gas 521
Chinese Poet in Barcelona 27
Cleaning Utensils 319
Clear Water Along the Way 403
“Cloudy daybreak” 499
“Cold reality frozen fly’s eye” 265
Dance, The 411
Daybreak 7
“Day breaks at the campground” 249
“Death, too, has some systems of clarity” 481
“Death is an automobile” 273
“Death is an automobile” 577
Detectives, The 605
Dickensian Children 33
“Docks Every evil spirit brightens up” 121
Donkey, The 695
“Don’t listen to the voices of dead friends, Gaspar” 269
Don’t Write Poems but Sentences 39
Elements, The 429
El Greco 97
Empty Cars 427
Empty Place Near Here, An 371
Ernesto Cardenal and I 671
Ethics 115
“Expect nothing of combat” 75
Extra Silence, An 365
Eyes 641
F. B. —He Dead 687
Façade 303
Fat Chance, Hon 291
“Fever falls like snowflakes” 137
A Fly Inside a Fly 229
Footsteps on the Stairs 361
For Antoni García Porta 259
For Edna Lieberman 151
For Efraín Huerta 49
For Rosa Lentini, Who Wants to be Grown Up and Responsible 195
For Victoria Ávalos 181
Four Poems for Lautaro Bolaño 793
Fragments 233
Fritz Leiber Rereads Some of his Stories 89
“From this side of the river” 465
Front Line, The 203
Frozen Detectives, The 609
Fucking Whistler 31
Fullness of the Wind, The 305
“Garbage . . . With great care I’ve drawn the ‘G’” 153
Ghost of Edna Lieberman, The 711
“Go to hell, Roberto, and remember you’ll never” 101
“Goodnight cornea goodnight” 247
Great Pit, The 675
Greek, The 729
Green, Red, and White Checks 307
“Guiraut de Bornelh the rain” 69
Gun to His Mouth, The 393
Gypsies 565
Happy Ending, A 803
“Hills shaded beyond your dreams” 271
Homage to Resortes 691
Homage to Tin Tan 693
Hope 179
Horde 523
Hospital, A 387
“I am a bed that never creaks a bed at one” 169
“I asked if she was still there” 41
“I brush my teeth, wash my face” 489
“I can’t walk, you say” 103
“I deserved every bit of it, boss, don’t turn on the light” 239
“I dreamt of frozen detectives” 603
“I dreamt of lips” 63
“I listen to Barney Kessel” 255
“I mean: there’s Giorgio Fox” 491
“I’m in a bar and someone’s name is Soni” 161
I’m My Own Bewitchment 311
“In a thousand years nothing will be left” 19
“Indeed, dejection, angst, etc.” 487
“In District 5 with the Latin Americans” 275
“In dreams I returned to my childhood country” 589
“In lost cars, with two or three distant friends” 581
In Some Enormous Dry Place, 1949 569
Inspector, The 293
Instructions, The 327
Interval of Silence 343
“In the reading room of Hell” 135
“In the TV movie” 587
Iron Table 157
“I said I’d never forget you” 281
“I saw her walking down the street” 579
I Saw My Father Again 701
“I see them every day, with their motorbikes” 583
“It doesn’t matter where the wind drags you” 213
It’s Better to Learn How to Read than to Learn How to Die 781
“It’s hardly surprising that the author’s room” 467
“It’s hardly surprising that the author walks” 497
“It’s nighttime and I’m in the Zona Alta�
� 245
Juan del Encina 185
King of Parks, The 715
Knife’s Glare, The 421
La Chelita 199
La Francesa 635
La Pava Roadside Bar of Castelldefels 415
Last Love Song of Pedro J. Lastarria, alias “El Chorito,” The 665
Last Savage, The 591
Latin American Poetry 525
Launch Ramps 385
Light, The 661
Like a Waltz 405
Lisa 629
Lola Paniagua 167
Lost Detectives, The 607
Luck 571
Lupe 625
Macedonio Fernández 191
Mario Santiago 227
Medic, The 375
Mexican Manifesto 529
“Middle Ages of long hair untouched by the wind” 71
Molly 261
Money 219
Monkey, A 321
Monk, The 55
Monty Alexander 425
Motorcyclists, The 399
Mr. Wiltshire 745
Muse 805
My Castles 25
“My gift to you will be an abyss, she said” 633
My Life in the Tubes of Survival 683
My One True Love 339
My Poetry 29
Nagas 431
Napo 563
Neochileans, The 749
Never Alone Again 407
“Never get sick Lose all the battles” 65
New Subdivisions. Nightmare 241
Nile, The 317
Nomad, The 617
“No one sends you letters now” 277
Notes on a Castration 437
Nothing Bad Will Happen to Me 253
“Now you fill the screen” 509
“Now you’re slipping toward the plan” 505
“Now you walk alone along the piers” 283
Nurses, The 709
Occasionally It Shook 367
“Of chairs, of premium sunsets” 163
Only Image I’ve Kept of T. C., The 51
Palingenesis 719
“Paradise, at times” 495
“Paris rue des Eaux” 225
Patricia Pons 131
People Walking Away 389
Perfection 359
Plain, The 127
Poe’s Library 129
Poet Does Not Wait for the Lady, The 57
Police 601
Policeman Walked Away, The 333
Portrait in May, 1994 801
Postscript 433
Prickly Pear 663
Pulsing of Your Heart, The 557
Rain 647
Reading of Conrad Aiken, A 93
Reading of Howard Frankl, A 95
“Reality” 511
Reasonable People vs. Unreasonable People 315
“Recurring, the stranger hangs from the kaleidoscope” 493
Redhead, The 381
Redhead, The 441
Re-Lax 139
Resurrection 783
“Resurrection said the traveler at the inn” 599
Reunion 735
Roberto Bolaño’s Devotion 723
Roberto Bolaño’s Return 725
Robot, The 263
Romance Novel 351
Romantic Dogs, The 673
Saint Roberto of Troy 189
Scalpel-Host 235
Sea, The 357
Self-Portrait 789
Self-Portrait 791
Self-Portrait at Twenty Years 621
Sheet, The 337
She Reigns Over Destruction 645
“She says she’s okay” 461
“She takes her pants off in the dark.” 145
“She teases you, caresses you” 453
Silent Night 423
Sirens, The 173
“Sleep my abyss, reflexes may tell me” 85
Snow-Novel, The 9
“So, it’s hardly surprising that there’s an abundance” 483
Solitude 99
Sonnet, A 47
Sophie Podolski 689
South American, The 623
Spring 107
Spring 1980 257
Station Plaza 201
Statue, A 171
“Strange gratuitous occupation” 13
Streets of Barcelona 123
Summer 419
“Sunday morning” 485
Sunset, The 619
“Switchblade to the neck” 35
Synopsis. The Wind 353
Tallers Street 221
Taoist Blues of Valle Hebrón Hospital, The 705
“Texts by Joe Haldeman, J. G. Ballard” 61
“That age-old moment” 503
“The author blurted out “I can’t keep” 165
“The author sets aside his work” 479
“The day will come when they’ll call you from the street” 117
“The girl in red is actually a sound” 175
“The kaleidoscope observed” 515
“The memory of Lisa descends again” 651
“The nightmare begins over there, right there” 81
“The Persian blinds let in, scarcely, two beams of moonlight” 237
“The protagonist is left with adventure” 463
“The real situation: I was alone in my house” 469
“There are days when one is inclined to read massive poems” 193
“There are no more images, Gaspar, no metaphors around here” 133
There Are No Rules 413
There Was Nothing 323
Thersites 59
“The screen, crossed by strips” 459
“These are the Roman faces of Hell” 91
“The snow falling over Gerona” 143
“The stranger is sprawled on the bed” 451
“The troubadours laugh on the tavern porch” 73
“The vases conceal” 83
They Talk But Their Words Don’t Register 347
“This could be hell for me” 457
“This hope isn’t something” 517
This is the Honest Truth 11
“Those Mexico City dawns appear this time of day” 207
Three Years 391
“Through the windows of a restaurant” 507
“To get close to the stranger” 475
Tough Guys. Critical and Ethnographic Commentary 615
Tough Guys Don’t Dance 611
Trees 37
“Truth is I’m the one who’s most afraid” 211
“Try not to sleep, Roberto, I tell myself . . .” 575
27 Years Old 363
Twilight in Barcelona 717
“Two bodies in a sleeping bag” 209
“Two in the morning and a blank screen” 471
Two Poems for Lautaro Bolaño 797
Two Poems for Sara 177
Verses by Juan Ramón 747
Victoria Ávalos and I 183
Victory 445
“Violence is like poetry” 141
Weekend, A 215
“What are you doing in this city where you’re poor” 43
“What’s there behind when there’s something behind” 473
“When I got to the Stadiums” 585
“When I think of people whose lives go to shit each day” 113
When I Was a Boy 355
White Handkerchief, A 377
Wigs of Barcelona, The 23
Window, The 159
With the Flies 187
Witness, The 297
Work 15
Worm, The 649
“Write of widows, the abandoned ones” 21
“Write red sex cross-cut by gray palm trees” 109
Write Whatever You Want 111
Years, The 731
Yellow 373
You’ll Walk Away 147
Your Distant Heart 279
“Your text . . . Your way of avoiding” 53
“You wish the angst would go away” 5
Índice de títulos en Español
Agua
clara del camino 402
“Ahora llenas la pantalla” 508
“Ahora paseas solitario por los muelles” 282
“Ahora te deslizas hacia el plan” 504
“Ahora tu cuerpo es sacudido por” 150
“A las 4 de la mañana viejas fotografías de Lisa” 16
“Al personaje le queda la aventura” 462
“Amanece en el camping” 248
Amanecer 6
“Amanecer nublado” 498
Amarillo 372
Amberes 416
Ángeles 118
“Aparecen a esta hora aquellos amaneceres del D.F.” 206
Apuntes de una castración 436
Árboles 36
“Así, no es de extrañar” 482
Atole 656
“A través de los ventanales de un restaurante” 506
Automóviles vacíos 426
Autorretrato 788
Autorretrato 790
Autorretrato a los veinte años 620
A veces temblaba 366
Azul 312
Bar La Pava, autovía de Castelldefels 414
Biblioteca de Poe 128
Bisturí-hostia 234
Bruno Montané cumple treinta años 566
“Buenas noches córnea buenas noches” 246
“Caca . . . Con mucho cuidado he trazado la «G»” 152
“Cada día los veo, junto a sus motos” 582
“Cae fiebre como nieve” 136
Calles de Barcelona 122
“Colinas sombreadas más allá de tus sueños” 270
Como un vals 404
Cuadros verdes, rojos y blancos 306
Cuando niño 354
“Cuando piense en gente hecha mierda diariamente” 112
Cuatro poemas para Lautaro Bolaño 792
“Dársenas Todo espíritu maligno anima” 120
“De este lado del río” 464
“Dentro de mil años no quedará nada” 18
“De sillas, de atardeceres extra” 162
“Después de un sueño” 454
Devoción de Roberto Bolaño 722
“Dice que está bien” 460
“Dije que jamás te olvidaría” 280
“Dos cuerpos dentro de un saco de dormir” 208
Dos poemas para Lautaro Bolaño 796
Dos poemas para Sara 176
“Duerme abismo mío, los reflejos dirán” 84
“Edad Media de las cabelleras” 70
El aplauso 408
El atardecer 618
“El autor escapó «no puedo mantener»” 164
“El autor suspende su trabajo” 478
El baile 410
El brillo de la navaja 420
El burro 694
“El caleidoscopio observado” 514
El dinero 218
El enfermero 374