Review by Booklist Review
Stavans follows his invaluable multigenre volume, The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature (2010), with a revelatory and affecting collection of 80-plus poems from 13 Latin American countries, each poem presented both in English and its original Spanish, Portuguese, or indigenous language. In his incisive introduction, Stavans covers matters literary, historical, and political, observing that in Latin American poetry the pendulum between the private and the epic . . . is constantly swinging. From introspection to protest, spirituality to eroticism, poets illuminate first cultures, colonialism, tyranny, war, liberation, and love over the course of the cataclysmic twentieth century, praising the beauty of the land and lamenting the elusiveness of justice. The big four Jorge Luis Borges, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Pablo Neruda, and Octavio Paz are interspersed with such luminaries as Ramon Lopez Velarde, Mexico's national poet; Claribel Alegria of El Salvador; Joao Cabral de Melo Neto of Brazil and his stalwart Education by Stone ; and the globe-trotting Chilean, Vicente Huidobro, who declares, We must revive the languages / With raucous laughter. Comedy, tragedy, and everything in between ignites this incandescent, century-encompassing, and foundational anthology.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This ambitious anthology from critic and translator Stavans (Dictionary Days) attempts to introduce North American readers to the great strengths and the variety of Latin American modernity in verse. Beginning with the Cuban poet and patriot Jose Marti (1853-1895), Stavans's selection runs from the lushly formal nationalisms of a century ago (the Peruvian Jose Santos Chocano: "I sing American, in its wild and autochthonous state... When I feel Incan, I honor that king,/ the Sun"), through the world-renowned intellect of Jorge Luis Borges, the expansive passions of Pablo Neruda, and the tender bleakness of the great Brazilian Carlos Drummond de Andrade, to a wealth of less famous, more recent poets. The volcanic odes of the Mexican Gloria Gevirtz ("The cages enclosing the perfumes, the limitless delights/ the voluptuousness of being born again and again") continue Neruda's visionary tradition, while the compressed bite of the Guatemalan Mayaquiche Humberto Ak'abal brings in another. While Stavans translates many poems himself, many more are reprinted from extant versions by famous names: Mark Strand, Elizabeth Bishop, Eliot Weinberger, Ursula K. Le Guin. Presented in facing-page format, Stavans's anthology inclines to the accessible; specialists may be frustrated by a few points, but Stavans aims, instead, to bring a whole tree of poems and traditions to U.S. readers who do not know it well. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
This bilingual anthology includes the most representative or best-known works of 84 poets, both famous and not so famous. Although it covers 13 countries, the usual heavy hitters-Argentina, Chile, Cuba, and Mexico-dominate. Unique to this collection is the inclusion of a handful of poems in indigenous languages and even one in Spanglish. Only a few poets have more than three poems, though Jorge Luis Borges and Pablo Neruda max out at seven each. The chronological arrangement begins in the 1890s with Jose Marti and Jose Asuncion Silva as forerunners to Modernismo. The translations are generally literal but often quite unusual, as when Alfonsina Storni's sarcastic lament that she waited media hora ("half an hour") comes out as "half a wing." The volume concludes with a first-line and title index, plus biographical sketches of the poets, which might have worked better as headpieces. This work complements the recently published Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry, which extends its coverage to pre-Columbian America; almost half of the poets here are not in the Oxford, with even less overlap in the selections. VERDICT A great introduction in English to the vast diversity of 20th-century Latin American verse, often as innovative as the Latin American novel.-Lawrence Olszewski, OCLC Lib., Dublin, OH (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
