SOURCE: Cernuda, Luis. “Words Before a Reading.” In The Poet's Work: 29 Masters of 20th Century Poetry on the Origins and Practice of Their Art, edited by Reginald Gibbons, pp. 42-7. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1979.

In the following essay, originally written in 1935 and translated here by Reginald Gibbons, Cernuda discusses the definition and nature of poetry in relation to his own work.

I can say that for the first time in my life I am risking a direct contact with the public. For me, the sensation is strange, since generally a poet cannot suppose that there is a public, listening to him. The poet is alone when he speaks or is with someone who scarcely exists in the outer reality. It's true that today the public is so reduced (and has even been called a “minority”¹) that a poet may well address himself to it without thereby giving up...