Roberto Bolano

Poet, writer, traveler. Founder of the infrarrealismo poetry movement.

[Roberto Bolano @roberto_bolano]

I've been sharing tumblers of bourbon with Lorca. I asked about his exhumation, but we both knew that, any more, our bones are only symbols.

[Roberto Bolano @roberto_bolano]

It's also very, very quiet. Or perhaps "still" would be the better word. It's very still.

[Roberto Bolano @roberto_bolano]

It's like the question Ulises wanted to ask Ceasarea on the sands of the Sonora Dessert, but never could.

[Roberto Bolano @roberto_bolano]

It's like trying to think of a line that never comes.

[Roberto Bolano @roberto_bolano]

I had always wondered what the Kingdom of the Dead was like. Now I know. It's like the world's most lonely poetry reading.

[Roberto Bolano @roberto_bolano]

Gabriela is a Chilean poet, a follower of Neruda. She's matching Juan Antonio shot for shot, letting him think he has a chance with her.

[Roberto Bolano @roberto_bolano]

My illusions lie in the streets of Mexico City, in the base of a shot glass on the bar, and in the poems of Rudimante Castelnuevo.

[Roberto Bolano @roberto_bolano]

rt @marktwain Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

[Roberto Bolano @roberto_bolano]

They decided to go to the reservation and have Thanksgiving dinner with the Indians. Maybe they'd find Ulises there.

[Roberto Bolano @roberto_bolano]

I only read the great plagiarists.

[Roberto Bolano @roberto_bolano]

I couldn't tell if he was bleeding or covered in milk.

[Roberto Bolano @roberto_bolano]

When he put down the book his father was shaking, either from anger or fear. Then he lied back in his chair and began to sing.

[Roberto Bolano @roberto_bolano]

It is six years since I came here, and still I don't know when I'll be able to leave.

[Roberto Bolano @roberto_bolano]

But she only changes the subject.

[Roberto Bolano @roberto_bolano]

All her verse is in iambic pentameter. Every single poem. We all order another scotch, and Miguel asks her to write a sestina . . .

[Roberto Bolano @roberto_bolano]

She has long legs, a brutal smile. Rosario is always bumming cigarettes from her.

[Roberto Bolano @roberto_bolano]

We speak without moving our lips. Luisa sends me a poem merely by thinking it.

[Roberto Bolano @roberto_bolano]

I didn't know it would be like this.

[Roberto Bolano @roberto_bolano]

Here in the Kingdom of the Dead, all the poets are in the same barrio.