SOURCE: "Visions of Solidarity," in The Times Literary Supplement, No. 3526, September 25, 1969, p. 1098.

In the following review of Poemas humanos/Human Poems, the critic provides an overview and comparison of The Black Heralds, Trilce, and Human Poems.

Vallejo was one of the first Hispanic-American poets to incorporate into his concept of poetry the most lasting message of the numerous artistic movements following the First World War: the breakdown of the old order and the absurd materialistic logic on which it was based, and the concomitant need to attempt a reintegration of reality which would award priority to the deepest emotional needs of man.

—Keith A. McDuffie

[Vallejo's] archetype was the infantile complex bequeathed to Peru by mother Spain, a colonization without resolution, a complex that seeks to be reabsorbed, that searches out its own dispersion, its death. Vallejo's journey was from mother to Mother, Spain was his European center...