Founded by Spanish colonizers, Caracas has become the capital of Venezuela and remains its largest city. This Carribean capital surged to importance during an early 20th century oil boom and remains the financial center of Venezuela. It is also the birth place of Simon Bolivar, a general and politician, and one of the principle rebellion leaders in the winning of Latin America's independence from the Spanish Empire. He is regarded in Hispanic America as a visionary and liberator.
Caracas appears in Steven's poem "Metamorphosis." Here Steven's activates a wind in the poem, a natural process that does surprising things to the text, such as changing spellings of words and making noises textually. The unexpected unfolding of the poem resonates with a surrealistic feel in which reality seems altered, culminating in the image of street lamps as rows of dangling hanged men. Caracas in this context can be read for its exotic and historic content, a far off place where the "cock-robin's" call signifies the remembrance of summer.
Metamorphosis
Yillow, yillow, yillow,/ Old worm, my pretty quirk,/ How the wind spells out/ Sep-tem-ber..../
Summer is in bones./ Cock-robin's at Caracas/ Make o, make o, make o,/ Oto-otu-bre/
And the rude leaves fall./ The rain falls. The sky/ Falls and lies with the worms./ The street lamps/
Are those that have been hanged,/ Dangling in an illogical/ To and to and fro/
Fro Niz-nil-imbo.
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