[Borges] reveals more of himself in his verse than in any other kind of writing. The capriciousness, the learned frivolity and playfulness of much of his prose are rarely found in his poetry. By contrast we see in it the other Borges—the sincere and ardent youth of the 1920's or the contemplative and nostalgic writer of the 1950's and 1960's. For many this is an unknown Borges: perhaps it is the real Borges. (p. 27)

At first glance the forty-five short pieces of free verse in Borges' first collection [Fervor de Buenos Aires] seem to be little more than a group of vignettes describing familiar scenes in and around his native city. However, to say that Fervor de Buenos Aires is a group of poems describing the city of Buenos Aires, would be equivalent to saying that Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale" is a poem about a bird….

It is true that about half of the compositions employ thematic materials drawn from Borges' observation of Buenos Aires' streets, gardens, cemeteries, and buildings. A few pieces, by contrast, present exotic scenes…. A limited number of poems are purely introspective and as such they do not describe any specific external reality…. [Neither] regular meter, rhyme, nor regularized strophes are in evidence. The absence of traditional forms does not mean that these poems have no structure: like other writers of free verse, Borges does incorporate formal devices into his poetry. (p. 31)

Despite the word "Fervor" in the collection's title, the reader soon becomes aware that this is a restrained fervor, a reflective passion directed toward an internalization of all that surrounds the poet. This goal is best achieved by selecting that portion of reality which is most easily assimilated: not the bustling downtown streets, but the passive, tree-shaded streets of the old suburbs. It may be a valid generalization to say that in all his writing, Borges seeks out the passive and manageable facets of reality in order to facilitate the creation of his own internal world. (pp. 31-2)

His vocabulary throughout the Fervor is revealing. It clearly indicates that he is seeking tranquillity, familial solidarity, and a kind of serenity which can only be associated with parental protectiveness. (p. 32)

Closely related to Borges' poetic transmutation of "hard" reality into a pliable, manageable reality is his recourse to a certain philosophical notion which has come to occupy a central position in all his work…. Berkeley, as a corollary to his idealism, posited God as the maintainer of the universe—if and when there might be no human beings available to perceive and hence to guarantee its existence. But Borges injects another thought …, one which is alien to Berkeleyan philosophy. He suggests that there is some danger that God might choose to take advantage of this brief period when the universe hangs by a thread. The implication here is that a capricious, vindictive, or negligent God may actually wish to destroy the world. Rather than in Berkeley, the source for this notion is to be found in Gnosticism, a philosophical current that has shaped much of Borges' thought. (pp. 33-4)

With a host of other writers past and present Borges shares the very human desire to stop time, to restore the past, or to dispel the fears of the future. In the everyday world, we know that to do these things is impossible, yet poets have always felt that their peculiar sensitivity to time may, in some way, permit them to accomplish these miracles. (p. 35)

The futility of trying to check the flow of time by literary creations, by recalling the past, or by surrounding oneself with old things appears clearly in the Fervor and has since become a dominant theme in all of Borges' writing. Yet his attitude is ambivalent and leads to a poetic tension for he knows that time—in the brutally real, everyday sense—flows on, that the world will change, that Borges will grow old, and that the past is forever gone. Yet he is reluctant to give in without a struggle, though he knows his efforts are futile. And so the rich and plastic descriptions of antique furniture, of old photographs, and of timeless streets are usually undermined by a word or phrase suggesting that their solidity and apparent timelessness are merely illusory. (p. 36)

Borges' poetry, if it is examined with an eye unspoiled by reading the brittle geometrical narratives of his later years, reveals surprisingly sentimental, affectionate qualities…. He displays a mood of frankness and sincerity which those who know his work superficially do not usually associate with him. Indeed, some of the material … is almost confessional in tone. It seems as if the Borges of 1923 were at a crossroads. Had he been a man of different temperament, it is quite possible that he would have yielded to the temptation of creating literature of unrestrained personal catharsis. Instead, he chose to deny the emotive side of life in his art. At least he promised that he would do this in his poetry. (pp. 37-8)

[Among] the twenty-eight compositions of Luna de enfrente poems of deep personal involvement … predominate over pieces of a more detached and more formalistic nature. A feeling of intimacy pervades the Luna: a third of the poems are in the second-person familiar form and the bulk of the remainder are in the first person. By contrast, the earlier Fervor contains only a few pieces directed to the familiar "you" (tú), while the majority are in the relatively impersonal third person. A further indication of the greater degree of intimacy of the Luna de enfrente is seen in Borges' tendency to personify such inanimate things as the Pampa, city streets, and the city itself. Finally, a substantial number of the compositions in the 1925 collection are love poems…. (p. 38)

Of even greater interest in the Luna is the poet's preoccupation with time. In this collection Borges' emphasis is on the relationship between time and memory rather than on the simple desire to halt time's flow. More precisely, memory becomes the remanso, the quiet backwater in which time's onward rush is checked…. [Memory] performs the important function of preserving past experience against the onslaught of time. But, Borges implies, memory is also a storehouse, a kind of infinite filing cabinet, the contents of which we cannot always control. We may indeed remember too much. (p. 39)

While history may be nothing more than the recurrence or the reshuffling of what has always been, Borges is nonetheless fascinated by historical events and personalities. Several of the pieces in the Luna show this interest. (p. 41)

Luna de enfrente is a collection of poems in which Borges reveals many of his intellectual preoccupations but even more of his affective life. The love theme and a confessional tone figure prominently in a substantial number of the poems…. The typically Borgesian treatment of external reality and time is also very evident in these poems, especially in those pieces dealing with memory. His interest in history—first seen in his poem to Rosas in Fervor—continues to grow. Finally Borges introduces in Luna a mood that has come to occupy an important place in much of his work: that of the man who has apparently done and seen everything and seems convinced that novelty is mere illusion.

As an example of poetic art, the Luna de enfrente is a rather uneven collection…. Borges' fine metaphors and striking adjectives, however, serve to make a number of the poems exceptionally beautiful. The high point of the collection, in the writer's view, is the finely wrought "Antelación de amor." Aside from the inherent lyricism of the piece, it is an example of how structural excellence can enhance total poetic impact, even when the poet is working in a completely free verse form. (pp. 42-3)

Two themes dominate [the poems of Cuaderno San Martín]: nostalgia for the past, and death. Often the two blend in a mood of elegiac evocation. Thus in the most memorable poems of the book Borges writes of the "mythical" founding of Buenos Aires; of his beloved Palermo district as it was at the close of the nineteenth century; of his grandfather Isidoro Acevedo; of the final resting place of ancestors, the Recoleta Cemetery; and of the suicide of his friend and fellow poet Francisco López Merino. (p. 43)

One of the most interesting pieces in the collection is on the death of Borges' ancestor, Isidoro Acevedo. Aside from its intrinsic value, this poem is noteworthy because in it Borges gives a clear hint of the kind of literature he would produce in the decade to follow. This "prefiguring"—to use one of his own favorite terms—of his future prose occurs in the description of Acevedo's last day. The old man lying on his deathbed in a state of feverish delirium plans a complete military compaign in his mind. Though Acevedo only mutters a few fragmentary phrases, Borges uses these as a point of departure to re-create a very concrete fantasy which he assumes his moribund grandfather was in effect experiencing…. (p. 45)

To generalize about the content of the recent poems is … difficult. Certainly history, viewed at times in the microcosm of a small but crucial event, and at other times in broad sweep, remains a major preoccupation. Closely related to his interest in the specifics of history is the constant fascination with time. And perhaps at the very root of all these concerns is a notion which has an almost obsessive recurrence in Borges' poetry as well as in his prose: the idea of the world as a complex enigma, expressed in the form of the labyrinth, or as the dream-made-real of a capricious creator. These are the underlying themes of his recent poetry, though on the surface Borges' subject matter reflects his current interests and activities…. (p. 51)

A number of these later poems reveal a sharpened self-consciousness: a kind of looking at oneself from the "outside" or as in a mirror. (p. 52)

[The] desire to incorporate poetic feeling into all his literary expression has always characterized Borges' work. Poetry has been, and rightfully so, the most personal of his genres and the one to which he constantly returns. Present in everything about us, it has for Borges a humble and everyday quality. (p. 53)