Skip to content

Scottish Poetry Library

Register/Sign in
Shopping Bag Shopping Bag
Bringing people and poems together
  • Home
  • Poetry
    • Poets
    • Poems
    • Burns Night
    • Scotland’s Makar
    • Podcasts
    • Best Scottish Poems
  • Library
    • Become a borrower
    • Catalogue
    • Collections
    • Ask a librarian
    • Copyright enquiries
  • Learning
    • Nat 5 and Higher poems
    • Dyslexia-friendly lesson plans
    • Poems in Scots for schools
    • Rannan Chloinne / Children’s Verses
    • Nua-Nòs Gaelic Resources
    • Poems in English for schools
    • Scots poems for bairns
    • Posters
  • Events
    • What’s On
    • Organising a cultural event at the SPL
    • Meeting rooms and venue hire
  • Shop
    • SPL Shop
  • About us
    • Our story
    • Our people
    • Our projects
    • FAQs
    • Company papers
    • Jobs & Volunteering
    • Find us
    • Contact us
    • Making a complaint
  • Support us
    • Become a Friend
    • Donate
  • Blog
Shopping BagShopping Bag
Ask a librarian
  • Home
  • >
  • Poetry
  • >
  • South American poetry
Donate Donate icon Ask a Librarian Ask a Librarian icon

South American poetry

Infância - by Carlos Drummond de Andrade

{ Poem }

Meu pai montava a cavalo, ia para o campo.
/ Minha mãe ficava sentada cosendo.
/ Meu irmão pequeno dormia.
/ Eu sozinho menino entre mangueiras
/ lia…

Lazybones - by Pablo Neruda

{ Poem }

In Chile now, cherries are dancing,
/ the dark, secretive girls are singing,
/ and in guitars, water is shining.
/
/ The sun is touching every…

Encounter with Freedom - by Elsa Wiezell

{ Poem }

Like an enormous wave
/ that lies down over my heart.
/ Like the stunning beauty
/ of the wind over the pines.
/ Like an immense, vital…

The Yellow House - by María Soledad Quiroga

{ Poem }

The house
/ yellow
/ windows everywhere without panes
/ pure…

So Much for Mañana - by Judith Ortiz Cofer

{ Poem }

After twenty years in the mainland
/ Mother’s gone back to the Island
/ to let her skin
/ melt from her bones
/ under her native sun.
/ She…

The Weathercock of the Cathedral at Quito - by Jorge Carrera Andrade

{ Poem }

The cock on the weathervane
/ Cannot flap his wings
/ Even though today is a feast.
/
/ The sun spreads his great yellow
/ Carpet in the…

La Casa - by Jorge Bustamante García

{ Poem }

a mia padre
/
/ Esta es la casa. Las ventanas abiertas
/ dejan caer la luz y una frágil
/ penumbra se esconde en los rincones.
/ Suaves…

In Fields of Sleepdreaming - by Delmira Agustini

{ Poem }

The pack of wild colts went smoking by,
/ muzzles ferocious, hides hirsute,
/ manes swept out stiff, bold, like thick staves;
/ they came through…

Heat - by Gilberto Gonzalez y Contreras

{ Poem }

Tropical mid-day. Indolence.
/ The reddish nudity
/ of the plowed field
/ begs the coconut-tree
/ to wave its palmy fan.
/
/ The creaking wood
/ mimics the cicada.
/ Silence walks on…

When a fish… - by Anonymous

{ Poem }

When a fish
/ screws
/ slimy up
/ out of
/ the long
/ dark
/ river-
/ downness
/ and
/ bubbling
/ says
/ down
/ there
/ blub
/ in the
/ long
/ dark
/ deepness
/ blub
/ there’s
/ an
/ alli-
/ gator
/ blub
/ oh
/ believe
/ that
/ fish.
/ …

Caracas - by  Eugenio Montejo

{ Poem }

The buildings are so high
/ nothing can be seen now of my childhood.
/ I’ve lost my patio with its lazy clouds
/ where the…

La Risa - by José Watanabe

{ Poem }

Una cuadrilla de obreros
/ está desmontando una vieja casona de Barranco.
/ Con una venia de paseante les pido su consentimiento para
/ mirarlos.
/ Desatan las…

1 2 Next
  • Newsletter signup
  • Accessibility
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy (UK)
Scottish Poetry Library
5 Crichton's Close, Canongate
Edinburgh EH8 8DT
Tel: +44 (0)131 557 2876
© Scottish Poetry Library 2026.
The Scottish Poetry Library is a registered charity (No. SCO23311).
City of Edinburgh logo Green Arts Initiative logo Creative Scotland logo
Scottish Poetry Library
Manage Consent

To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.

We use privacy-focused tracking technologies to help us understand and improve the experience of our visitors. We track activity, not users, but you can still object to this tracking via our cookie policy.

Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
  • Manage options
  • Manage services
  • Manage {vendor_count} vendors
  • Read more about these purposes
View preferences
  • {title}
  • {title}
  • {title}