Trilce
The most radically experimental collection in Spanish-language poetry. Vallejo shattered syntax, invented neologisms, and used typography and white space with a violence that made Eliot look conservative. Written partly while he was in prison in Peru, Trilce combines abstract linguistic experiment with visceral physical suffering. Neruda said Vallejo was the greatest American poet, and the question is whether "American" meant only the continent or the hemisphere.
Vallejo broke Spanish so thoroughly that native speakers read Trilce with annotations, and in English you get a reconstruction of a ruin. Neologisms, numerals for titles, syntax severed mid-thought: the difficulty offers no preface and no handholds. You can spend a week on a single poem and come away with a sensation instead of a meaning. That may be the point; it is still the price.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
