The Romantic Dogs is a collection of poems by the Chilean author Roberto Bolaño

Roberto Bolaño

Roberto Bolaño Ávalos was a Chilean novelist and poet. In 1999 he won the Rómulo Gallegos Prize for his novel Los detectives salvajes , and in 2008 he was posthumously awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction for his novel 2666, which was described by board member Marcela Valdes...

. It was published in 2006. The bilingual edition, with English translations by Laura Healy, was published by New Directions in 2008.

These 43 poems span nearly twenty years, from 1980 to 1998, embracing a wide variety of topics. Bolaño's obsession with detectives is evident in several poems, but the collection suggests other preoccupations, as in the poem "Godzilla

Godzilla

is a daikaijū, a Japanese movie monster, first appearing in Ishirō Honda's 1954 film Godzilla. Since then, Godzilla has gone on to become a worldwide pop culture icon starring in 28 films produced by Toho Co., Ltd. The monster has appeared in numerous other media incarnations including video games,...

 in Mexico."

Reception

Forrest Gander

Forrest Gander

Forrest Gander is an American poet, essayist, novelist, critic, and translator.Born in the Mojave Desert, he was raised in Virginia where he attended The College of William and Mary, majoring in geology, a subject referenced frequently in both his poems and essays. He received an M.A...

, writing for The Nation

The Nation

The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...

, described Bolaño's work as "A witty, sardonic poetry, the likes of which could be called 'unimproved'—lacking the polish of a shiny commodity. With Bolaño, we encounter not only 'fist-fucking' but 'feet-fucking' in a poem that also mentions Pascal, Nazi generals, Shining Path bonfires, and a teenage hooker. With Bolaño, the explicit description of a sexual encounter is fragmented by temporal disjunctions, heuristic leaps of thought and a barking dog; in the end, God and an author show up. . . . The poems shine their beery light on life's romantic dogs: dreamers, detectives, and poets who do double time as saints and martyrs."

External links

• The Romantic Dogs at Complete Review
  Complete review
  complete review is a literary website founded in March 1999. It is best known for reviews of novels in English translation, in particular drawing attention to otherwise neglected contemporary works from around the world, but there are also reviews of classics, non-fiction, drama and poetry...
  
  . Includes links to reviews.
• The Triumph of Roberto Bolaño The Romantic Dogs review from The New York Review of Books
  The New York Review of Books
  The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
  
  
• "The Romantic Dogs by Roberto Bolaño" by Levi Stahl, The Quarterly Conversation
• "The Romantic Dogs by A.W. Allworthy, Ralph Magazine