Not since 1959 when Octavio Paz and Samuel Beckett published An Anthology of Mexican Poetry, has there been a collection which so thoroughly examines the poetry of the country known for being "too far from God and too close to the United States." Yet, as Elliott Weinberger writes in his introduction,
"Americans know everything about God, but next to nothing about Mexico—few know that Mexico-particularly when compared to the United States-is a kind of paradise for poets."
Reversible Monuments introduces this "paradise" to American readers. It includes major international writers like Alberto Blanco, Pura Lopez Colome, and David Huerta, as well as exciting younger poets, and poets whose work, while well-known in the Spanish-speaking world has not yet seen publication in English. The twenty-five poets represented are as diverse as their American counterparts: They are urban, educated, younger, well travelled, aware of their literary heritage, and include Buddhists, feminists, Jewish poets, experimental poets, darkly brooding poets, and playfully entertaining poets.
Until the Poem Remains
by Francisco Hernandez
Strip away all the flesh
until the poem remains
with the sonorous darkness of bone.
And smooth the bone, polish it, sharpen it
until it becomes such a fine needle,
that it pierces the tongue without pain
though blood chokes the throat.
Reversible Monuments includes a healthy bilingual selection by each poet, features an introduction by Elliott Weinberger, and gathers the work of esteemed translators alongside that of younger translators. It also includes biographies of the poets, notes on the poetry, and an extensive bibliography of contemporary Mexican poetry.
Mónica de la Torre is a poet and translator. She edited and translated a volume of selected poems by Gerardo Deniz published by Lost Roads and Ditoria in 2000. With artist Terence Gower she is co-author of Appendices, Illustrations & Notes (Smart Art Press, 1999). She was brought up in Mexico City and moved to New York in 1993, when she received a Fulbright grant to study an MFA in Poetry at Columbia University. She’s currently pursuing a doctorate in Comparative Literature at the same university. Her writings about art, poems, and translations have appeared in American Poetry Review, ArtNews, BOMB, Boston Review, Fence, Lit, Mandorla, Pierogi Press, Review: Latin American Literature and Arts, TRANS,and Verse.
