Caballero Bonald

CB has been winning all the prizes recently in Spain. It could be because he is still around, after a lot of the poets of his generation are deceased. It could be that he is the safe choice. His language is ornately Latinate, but I find that his poetry does not satisfy. There is a poverty of ideas behind the rich surface of words. It is not bad, but almost its only attraction is in the sheer number of unfamiliar words used. It is surprisingly inert.