Journal Issue
This April 1969 number of Comment in Motion is best met through the writing itself. It contains 43 named pieces or sections, beginning with Foreword, Cassandra’s Song by Gil Vicente, and There’s a Rose’s New Life in the Garden by Gil Vicente. That opening offers a direct path through the issue, but it is not the only one. A reader can follow the printed order, pause over a familiar contributor, or start with a title that catches the eye. No special background is needed. The magazine explains itself gradually through the choices it makes and through the company each piece keeps.
This number makes Unknown Spanish Writer the center of its experiment, carrying 8 poems—from The Dead Lover to All Is Night’s Darkness—into Grover Jacoby’s fluctuant syllabic measure. Translations of Gil Vicente, Charles d’Orléans, Heinrich Heine broaden the comparison, so the issue reads as a set of practical tests rather than a single showcase. Foreword supplies the turning point, explaining what the verse itself is trying to preserve: movement, stress, and rhetorical force across languages. The result is both a small anthology and a compact demonstration of translation as an argument about poetic time.
The contents page also works like a small map. Early entries establish the issue’s first set of voices; around the middle, Rondeau by Christine de Pisan changes the view; the closing stretch reaches Tidings of Death by Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas. The works differ in length, subject, and manner, yet their placement creates connections that a simple list of names cannot show. The pleasure comes from those changes. A short piece can clear the air after a longer one, a new voice can redirect the mood, and an unexpected title can make an earlier page look different when the reader thinks back to it.
The contributor list includes Gil Vicente, Garcilaso de la Vega, Lope de Vega Carpio, Unknown Spanish Writer, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Charles d’Orléans, Christine de Pisan, and Heinrich Heine, along with 8 additional contributors. Some readers will arrive looking for a particular name; others will meet these contributors here for the first time. Either approach works. The publication details add useful context: the issue was edited by Grover Jacoby, published by Variegation Publishing Company, and issued from Los Angeles, California. A journal is also a made object, assembled by people deciding what to print, how to order it, and which voices should share a number. Reading from beginning to end lets those choices appear naturally.
The catalog subjects—Los Angeles little magazines, American poetry, Poetry translation, Comparative poetics, and Fluctuant syllabic verse—are useful starting points, especially for searching, but they do not set limits on what a reader may find. For a first visit, begin with Foreword, turn next to Rondeau by Christine de Pisan, and finish with Tidings of Death by Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas. The clean reading edition is designed for that kind of movement. Original scan: 32 PDF pages. Reader’s edition: 57 pages. It keeps the contents in a stable, legible form and makes names and titles easier to find. A source facsimile remains part of the project’s private editorial record, but it is not included in the public upload. What appears here is the reading copy: a practical way to spend time with the issue and discover which pieces invite a return.
Contributors
- Gil Vicente — Original poet
- Garcilaso de la Vega — Original poet
- Lope de Vega Carpio — Original poet
- Unknown Spanish Writer — Original poet
- Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer — Original poet
- Charles d’Orléans — Original poet
- Christine de Pisan — Original poet
- Heinrich Heine — Original poet
- Friedrich Hölderlin — Original poet
- Charles Baudelaire — Original poet
- Michelangelo Buonarroti — Original poet
- Francesco Petrarca — Original poet
- Rosalía Castro — Original poet
- Pedro Calderón de la Barca — Original poet
- Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas — Original poet
- Grover Jacoby — Translator
Publication details
Full contents
- Foreword [Essay, p. 209]
- Cassandra’s Song — Gil Vicente [Poem (translation), p. 211]
- There’s a Rose’s New Life in the Garden — Gil Vicente [Poem (translation), p. 212]
- Cantiga — Gil Vicente [Poem (translation), p. 213]
- The Girl Is Really in Anger — Gil Vicente [Poem (translation), p. 214]
- From the Tree of Roses I Come — Gil Vicente [Poem (translation), p. 215]
- Villancete — Gil Vicente [Poem (translation), p. 216]
- Song — Garcilaso de la Vega [Poem (translation), p. 217]
- Song — Lope de Vega Carpio [Poem (translation), p. 218]
- Song from “The Rustic in His Corner” — Lope de Vega Carpio [Poem (translation), p. 219]
- Song from “The Silver Girl” — Lope de Vega Carpio [Poem (translation), p. 219]
- Song from “The Grand Duke of Muscovy” — Lope de Vega Carpio [Poem (translation), p. 220]
- The Dead Lover — Unknown Spanish Writer [Poem (translation), p. 221]
- Luna que Reluces — Unknown Spanish Writer [Poem (translation), p. 221]
- Song — Unknown Spanish Writer [Poem (translation), p. 222]
- I Would Never Become a Nun — Unknown Spanish Writer [Poem (translation), p. 223]
- The Heron Goes — Unknown Spanish Writer [Poem (translation), p. 223]
- Song — Unknown Spanish Writer [Poem (translation), p. 224]
- Song — Unknown Spanish Writer [Poem (translation), p. 224]
- All Is Night’s Darkness — Unknown Spanish Writer [Poem (translation), p. 225]
- From “Rimas” — Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer [Poem (translation), p. 226]
- From “Rimas” — Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer [Poem (translation), p. 226]
- From “Rimas” — Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer [Poem (translation), p. 227]
- From “Rimas” — Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer [Poem (translation), p. 227]
- Rondeau — Charles d’Orléans [Poem (translation), p. 228]
- Song — Charles d’Orléans [Poem (translation), p. 229]
- Rondeau — Christine de Pisan [Poem (translation), p. 230]
- From “Verschiedene”, Emma - 4 — Heinrich Heine [Poem (translation), p. 231]
- From “Lyrisches Intermezzo” - 51 — Heinrich Heine [Poem (translation), p. 231]
- From “The North Sea”—7—(Third Lyric) — Heinrich Heine [Poem (translation), p. 232]
- Helen — Heinrich Heine [Poem (translation), p. 232]
- The Runenstein — Heinrich Heine [Poem (translation), p. 233]
- Descend, Sun of Beauty — Friedrich Hölderlin [Poem (translation), p. 234]
- The Zeitgeist — Friedrich Hölderlin [Poem (translation), p. 235]
- Man — Friedrich Hölderlin [Poem (translation), p. 236]
- Vanini — Friedrich Hölderlin [Poem (translation), p. 238]
- Rondeau — Christine de Pisan [Poem (translation), p. 240]
- Rondeau — Charles d’Orléans [Poem (translation), p. 241]
- Ballade — Charles d’Orléans [Poem (translation), p. 242]
- Rondeau — Charles d’Orléans [Poem (translation), p. 243]
- The Enemy — Charles Baudelaire [Poem (translation), p. 244]
- Man and the Sea — Charles Baudelaire [Poem (translation), p. 245]
- A Taste for the Void — Charles Baudelaire [Poem (translation), p. 246]
- Octave — Michelangelo Buonarroti [Poem (translation), p. 247]
- Madrigal — Francesco Petrarca [Poem (translation), p. 248]
- Madrigal — Francesco Petrarca [Poem (translation), p. 249]
- Sonnet — Francesco Petrarca [Poem (translation), p. 250]
- Sonnet — Francesco Petrarca [Poem (translation), p. 251]
- From “En las Orillas del Sar” — Rosalía Castro [Poem (translation), p. 252]
- From “En las Orillas del Sar” — Rosalía Castro [Poem (translation), p. 253]
- Sonnet — Pedro Calderón de la Barca [Poem (translation), p. 254]
- Varied Stirrings of His Heart Afloat on the Waves of Lisi’s Hair — Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas [Poem (translation), p. 255]
- On the Briefness and Fugitive Nature of Life — Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas [Poem (translation), p. 256]
- Tidings of Death — Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas [Poem (translation), p. 257]
Rights and citation
Copyright © 1969 by Grover Jacoby
Copyright Status Unresolved
The issue bears a 1969 copyright notice; rights in individual contributions and the compilation have not been fully resolved.
*Comment in Motion*, no. 7, April 1969. Text/Tech Journals, reader’s edition.