Description
Poetry. Latino/Latina Studies. LGBTQIA Studies. Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Randall. Edited by Susan Gardner. "In these poems we accompany the man to distant cities and into his own island history. His lines are crafted in layers of looking, listening, feeling. Wild surges of breath are reigned in with just the right degree of control, so that these pathways and precipices rarely lead where the reader expects." —Margret Randall
"In the hyper-velocity of the monolingual poetic fashion of the United States and of social networking, there is a tendency to forget that poetry is human, and that the traditions to be drawn from in it are human and might involve emotions that derive from the echo of forgotten or once remembered music. Reading the poetry of Alfredo Zaldívar I found myself in a zone too rarely encountered these days, a zone in which the poet is reserved and allows the senses to finish the sentence, allows the unsaid to suggest the other registers not yet hinted at. Long known for his role as founder of an extraordinary handmade book collective, as well as head of a major publishing house, in Margaret Randall's intimately focused translations we finally have a chance to encounter Alfredo Zaldívar, the human poet." —Ammiel Alcalay
"This dynamic, moving volume is a welcome addition to the rich trove of Latin American poetry in translation." —Electa Arenal
Author Bio
Margaret Randall (Translator) is a poet, essayist, oral historian, translator, photographer and social activist. She lived in Latin America for 23 years (Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua). From 1962 to 1969, she and Mexican poet Sergio Mondragón founded and co- edited El Corno Emplumado / The Plumed Horn, a bilingual literary quarterly that published some of the best new work of the decade. Randall's recent titles include As If The Empty Chair / Como Si La Silla Vacia, The Rhizome as a Field of Broken Bones, About Little Charlie Lindbergh and She Becomes Time (Wings Press). Che On My Mind and Haydee Santamaria, Cuban Revolutionary: She Led by Transgression appeared in 2015 and 2016 respectively, and a large bilingual anthology of Cuban poetry, Only The Road / Solo El Camino appeared in 2016, all from Duke University Press. Randall lives in New Mexico with her partner (now wife) of 29 years, the painter Barbara Byers, and travels extensively to read, lecture, and teach.
Author City: ALBUQUERQUE, NM USA
Alfredo Zaldívar, born in Sojo Tres, Holguín, Cuba in 1956, has lived in Matanzas since 1973. In 1985 he founded the world-renowned handmade book collective Ediciones Vigía, where he worked for fifteen years. He now heads Ediciones Matanzas. Zaldívar's own poetry combines myth and everyday experience, indignation and metaphor, cultural references that define his time, humor and occasional passages of powerful homoeroticism. In 2012 he was awarded Cuba's National Editors Prize and holds the high Honor of Distinction in National Culture, among other awards. Zaldívar's books include Concilio de las aguas (1989), La vida en ciernes (2002), Esperando a viernes (2009), Rasgado con las manos (2015), and Cuchillos en el aire / Knives in the Air (2015). The Cuban edition of TRILLOS / PRECIPIOS / CONCURRENCIAS - PATHWAYS / PRECIPICES / SPECTATORS won the José Jacinto Milanés Bicentenary Extraordinary Poetry Prize in 2014.
Author City: Matanzas CUB