SOURCE: Cohen, Henry. “Daniel Boone, Moses and the Indians: Ernesto Cardenal's Evolution from Alienation to Social Commitment.” Chasqui: Revista de Literatura-Latinamericana 11, no. 1 (November 1981): 21–32.

In the following essay, Cohen explores the development of Cardenal's sense of social commitment as expressed through his poetry.

Jose Luis Gonzalez-Balado has stressed the importance of the Poundian element of el exteriorismo in the poetry of Ernesto Cardenal. As a student at Columbia University in New York during the period 1947–49, the critic writes, the Nicaraguan adopted as one of his prime models Ezra Pound, whose influence is most obvious in Cardenal's contention that “la poesía debe contener historia, y no sólo historia sino también economía, política, mística, sabiduría, incorporando todos los elementos exteriores posibles.”¹ Poetry must not simply resonate with the writer's internal reactions to the outside world; the outside world must flow into and inform poetry...