Eyes to See Otherwise – Poetry - Softcover

Aridjis, Homero; Ferber, Betty; Mcwhirter, George; Ferlinghetti, Lawrence

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811215091 ISBN 13: 9780811215091

Publisher: New Directions, 2002

Synopsis

For the first time, a comprehensive Selected Poems in a bilingual edition, by Mexico's greatest living poet. Eyes to See Otherwise is the first extensive selection of poems by leading Mexican poet Homero Aridjis to appear in English. The scope and quality of the translations, by some of America's finest poets, mark the centrality of his work on the map of modern poetry. Aridjis's sources range from Nahuatl chants and Huichol initiation songs to San Juan de la Cruz and the 16th-century Spanish poet Luis de Gangora y Argote. He is, in the words of translator George McWhirter, "a troubadour of love for lost environments, a voice in the wilderness of Mexico City and Mexico." Included in this selection are poems by Aridjis evoking his own life, present and past, his memories always sticking close to his birthplace Contepec, where, on Altamirano Hill, the Monarch butterflies arrive each year. This long awaited Selected Poems enables the reader to witness, from his 1960 collection The Eyes of a Double Vision to new unpublished poemsin a bilingual editionthe poetic and personal evolution of this "visionary poet of lyrical bliss, crystalline concentrations and infinite spaces" (Kenneth Rexroth). Translated by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Martha Black Jordan, Philip Lamantia, W.S. Merwin, John Frederick Nims, Kenneth Rexroth, Jerome Rothenberg, Brian Swann, Barbara Szerlip, Nathaniel Tarn, Eliot Weinberger, and the editors.

About this title

About the Authors

One of Latin America's foremost literary figures, Homero Aridjis was born in Contepec, Michoacán, Mexico. He has written fifty-one books of poetry and prose and won many important literary prizes. Formerly the Mexican Ambassador to Switzerland, the Netherlands, and UNESCO, he is the president emeritus of PEN International. He is founder and president of the Group of 100, an environmentalist association of writers, artists, and scientists.

George McWhirter is an Irish-Canadian writer, translator, editor, teacher and Vancouver's first Poet Laureate. He has translated works by Mario Arregui, Carlos Fuentes, José Emilio Pacheco, and Homero Aridjis (for which he won the 2024 Griffin Poetry Prize).

In 1953 Lawrence Ferlinghetti cofounded City Lights, the first paperback bookstore in the United States, a Mecca for millions. His Coney Island of the Mind is one of the best-selling volumes of poetry by any living American poet. Born in Yonkers, New York, in 1919, Ferlinghetti has received the Robert Frost Memorial Medal and the first Literarian Award of the National Book Foundation.

Edition details

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0811215091
• ISBN 13: 9780811215091
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320