Mexican Poetry

Collects samplings of the writings of thirty-five influential Mexican poets ranging from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries

Mexican Poetry has flourished during the last thirty years, and this ambitious multi-lingual anthology surveys the vibrant and eclectic work of poets born after 1950. The poetry of this new generation reflects a wealth of backgrounds, regions, styles, and especially influences -- including traditional and inventive narrative, formalism, lyrics, suites, and experimental verse. This is also the first generation of Mexican poets to hold in common an international perspective. Unlike anthologies offering only one or two poems by each author, Reversible Monuments affords its poets space enough to present larger-than-usual selections, allowing readers to more fully realize the individual voices. The translations, by both distinguished translators and brilliant new practitioners, are concise and transparent, and most are published here for the first time. In addition, several indigenous poets who write in Zapotec, Tzeltal, and Mazatec are presented tri-lingually. Book jacket.

From the author of Pulitzer-nominated The Devil’s Highway and national bestseller The Hummingbird’s Daughter comes an exquisitely composed collection of poetry on life at the border. Weaving English and Spanish languages as fluidly as he blends cultures of the southwest, Luis Urrea offers a tour of Tijuana, spanning from Skid Row, to the suburbs of East Los Angeles, to the stunning yet deadly Mojave Desert, to Mexico and the border fence itself. Mixing lyricism and colloquial voices, mysticism and the daily grind, Urrea explores duality and the concept of blurring borders in a melting pot society.

The renowned Mexican poet and critic Octavio Paz assembled this important anthology--the first of its kind in English translation--with a keen sense of what is both representative and universal in Mexican poetry. His informative introduction places the thirty-five selected poets within a literary and historical context that spans four centuries (1521-1910). This accomplished translation is the work of the young Samuel Beckett, just out of Trinity College, who had been awarded a grant by UNESCO to collaborate with Paz on the project. Notable among the writers who appear in this anthology are Bernardo de Balbuena (1561-1627), a master of the baroque period who celebrated the exuberant atmosphere and wealth of the New World; Juan Ruíz de Alarcón (1581?-1639), who became one of Spain's great playwrights; and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651-1695), the beautiful nun whose passionate lyric poetry, written within her convent's walls, has made her, three hundred years later, a proto-feminist literary heroine. This is a major collection of Mexican poetry from its beginnings until the modern period, compiled and translated by two giants of world literature.

Like A New Sun: An Anthology of Indigenous Mexican Poetry features poetry from Huastecan Nahuatl, Isthmus Zapotec, Mazatec, Tzotzil, Yucatec Maya, and Zoque languages. Co-edited by Isthmus Zapotec poet Víctor Terán and translator David Shook, this groundbreaking anthology introduces six indigenous Mexican poets—three women and three men—each writing in a different language. Well-established names like Juan Gregorio Regino (Mazatec) appear alongside exciting new voices like Mikeas Sánchez (Zoque). Each poet's work is contextualized and introduced by its translator. Forward by Eliot Weinberger. Poets include Víctor Terán (Isthmus Zapotec), Mikeas Sánchez (Zoque), Juan Gregorio Regino (Mazatec), Briceida Cuevas Cob (Yucatec Maya), Juan Hernández (Huastecan Nahuatl), and Ruperta Bautista (Tzotzil).

Captures the many varieties of love in Mexican literature. Its selections include passionate works by the 17th century nun Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, postmodern romantic verse by Ramon Lopez-Velarde, and the contemporary love poetry of Rosario Castellanos. The charming volume is a wonderful gift for a loved one, as well as a compact sampling of Mexico's literary heritage.

“Olivarez steps into the ‘inbetween’ standing between Mexico and America in these compelling, emotional poems. Written with humor and sincerity” (Newsweek). Named a Best Book of the Year by Newsweek and NPR. In this “devastating debut” (Publishers Weekly), poet José Olivarez explores the stories, contradictions, joys, and sorrows that embody life in the spaces between Mexico and America. He paints vivid portraits of good kids, bad kids, families clinging to hope, life after the steel mills, gentrifying barrios, and everything in between. Drawing on the rich traditions of Latinx and Chicago writers like Sandra Cisneros and Gwendolyn Brooks, Olivarez creates a home out of life in the in-between. Combining wry humor with potent emotional force, Olivarez takes on complex issues of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and immigration using an everyday language that invites the reader in, with a unique voice that makes him a poet to watch. “The son of Mexican immigrants, Olivarez celebrates his Mexican-American identity and examines how those two sides conflict in a striking collection of poems.” —USA Today

Presents a diverse sample of twentieth century Latin American poems from eighty-four authors in Spanish, Portuguese, Ladino, Spanglish, and several indigenous languages with English translations on facing pages.

Two strands, one indigenous, the other imposed, pro-duce the poetic and cultural tensions that give form to the work of five contemporary Mexican poets -- All Chumacero, Efrain Huerta, Jaime Sabines, Ruben Bonifaz Nuno, and Rosario Castellanos. Although all five are significant figures, only Castellanos has yet been widely studied in the United States, primarily for her novels and her relations with the feminist movement. In spite of a number of rather basic differences in their work, these poets share and write within a complicated culture rooted in both the pre-Hispanic and the European traditions. Their poetry reflects this in its emphasis on death as a constant presence and in the echoes of both Aztec ritual poetry and European poetry. Although apparently very different formally and thematically, the five share a number of concerns. Each of them writes out of a contradictory inner tension; each is preoccupied with the effort to shape language as part of a personal voyage of discovery; each is haunted by death and seeks realization or plenitude through love of some kind. And each of them, ultimately, finds there is no escape. As Frank Dauster concludes, "The poetry of Mexico, like its people and its society, reflects the fusion of two worlds, and these complex poets of the double strand operate freely and imaginatively within it." Although addressed primarily to specialists in Latin American literature, The Double Strand also speaks to those interested in the complex interaction between two widely differing cultural heritages, and in the rich fusion this blending produces in Mexican letters.

"José Limón is one of our most interesting and important commentators on Chicano culture. . . . [This book] will help strengthen an important style of historically and politically accountable cultural analysis."—Michael M. J. Fischer, co-author of Debating Muslims: Cultural Dialogues in Postmodernity and Tradition