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Diorama
Rare book
- GenresPoetry
66 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
About the author
Rocío Cerón
25 books7 followersPoeta, ensayista y editora. Ha publicado Materia negra (Parentalia, 2018), Borealis (FCE, 2016), La rebelión. O mirar el mundo hasta pulverizarse los ojos (UANL, 2016), Anatomía del nudo. Obra reunida (2002-2015) (Conaculta, 2015), Nudo vortex (Literal, 2015), Diorama (UANL, 2012; segunda edición, Amargord, España, 2013), Tiento (UANL, 2010), Imperio (Ediciones Monte Carmelo, 2009), entre otros.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 2, 2015
I may have translated this. I think it's terrific and so does Jerome Rothenberg and World Literature Today!
October 3, 2015
I have now read through the book of poems 4 times. Over the months I have been browsing it's pages from time to time in search of the stubborn melodies and rhythms that will not leave me and contrarily have nestled into my mind hoping to find them again amongst the stanzas and lines. Diorama seems like a hallucinogenic journey with no end. It has not ended for me despite putting it down. The pauses, the imagery, and the allusions are palpable and visionary to the happening of daily life here in Buenos Aires. My notion is that this could be said for other places in Latin America and possibly in regard to other metropolitan cities where migration is constant and growing; not to exclude the spaces where the transitory individual is commonplace (That is if all spaces are not so). Honing in on the liminality of the book's landscape, both political and social, it is important that the reader notice the rich language and potent call to listen. This is enhanced when Cerón invites the Paraguayan writer, and friend, Cristino Bogado to translate a repeated refrain into the Guaraní, extending the book deeper into a frontal reality of Latin American that is so often boxed in as anamorphic due to generalizations and misinformed interpretations. Confusing and hard to capture its coherence at times, the modern urban setting of Latin America is difficult to sketch, interpret, or process, much like the first couple readings of Diorama. However, Cerón exercises her style to corral the elements of such a world by transposing it all to paper by virtue of her visual and symphonic poetics. To the readers' excitement, they will notice that Anna Rosenwong's translation is peerless and nothing short of honest, careful, and symphonic in and of itself.
As Rocío says, "[Diorama]is a listening book; that´s to say, a book that is influenced by the voices, images, and truths of a nation, a continent. Thus the voices, like in a symphony concert, mix; they meet in a polyphonic composition."
As Rocío says, "[Diorama]is a listening book; that´s to say, a book that is influenced by the voices, images, and truths of a nation, a continent. Thus the voices, like in a symphony concert, mix; they meet in a polyphonic composition."
August 1, 2016
You’re going to have to forgive me from the get go on this one. As you’ve probably guessed I’ve recently had a bit of an obsession with Enrique Vila-Matas and when I read his recent work “The Illogic Of Kassel” I came across a section that I thought totally relevant to the poetic work “Diorama” by Rocío Cerón.
I dreamed of fields of grass where beatniks were grazing, fields that split into more fields and then into killing fields like a sprawling nightmare. And then I dreamed (in the part of the night closest to me waking and, therefore, to my cheerful morning mood) that somebody stole my shoes in those fields and told me that the common revered model of the “great man” was the opposite of poetry and the irreducible individuality of being unique. This view was the opposite of the poetry of the unique existence (ephemeral, unrepeatable), which did not need to be written, but only – and above all – to be lived. This second part of the dream, with its agreeable observations on the poetry of individuality, must have influenced my excellent mood the following morning, which was indeed the norm.
Onto “Diorama”, the winner of this year’s Best Translated Book Award for Poetry, and the excellent “Translator’s Note” at the opening of the collection:
Translating Rocío Cerón’s Diorama was at first baffling. As an experienced translator and as a less than conventional poet myself, I know better than to seek clarity or narrative or concrete structure in experimental poetry. Nonetheless, it is precisely this sort of legibility that readers often demand of translated work, which can result in selection bias; difficult, experimental, or what Cole Swenson calls “immanent” poetry is often left untranslated in favor of the more familiar and legible. It is essentially impressionistic, stubbornly elusive, and at times outright hallucinatory.
This book is presented in two sections, the English translation and the original Spanish versions. This may seem an odd approach, but when you learn that Rocío Cerón’s “enveloping, fierce live performances” mean you would gain a lot by trying the lines aloud for themselves “attentive not only to sound and rhythm but to the play and gripping of the words in the mouth.” “This is a work that demands to be spoken and heard”. Not only that, Cerón accompanies her works “with carefully orchestrated multimedia presentations that include still images, text, and film”.
For my full review go to http://messybooker.blogspot.com.au/20...
I dreamed of fields of grass where beatniks were grazing, fields that split into more fields and then into killing fields like a sprawling nightmare. And then I dreamed (in the part of the night closest to me waking and, therefore, to my cheerful morning mood) that somebody stole my shoes in those fields and told me that the common revered model of the “great man” was the opposite of poetry and the irreducible individuality of being unique. This view was the opposite of the poetry of the unique existence (ephemeral, unrepeatable), which did not need to be written, but only – and above all – to be lived. This second part of the dream, with its agreeable observations on the poetry of individuality, must have influenced my excellent mood the following morning, which was indeed the norm.
Onto “Diorama”, the winner of this year’s Best Translated Book Award for Poetry, and the excellent “Translator’s Note” at the opening of the collection:
Translating Rocío Cerón’s Diorama was at first baffling. As an experienced translator and as a less than conventional poet myself, I know better than to seek clarity or narrative or concrete structure in experimental poetry. Nonetheless, it is precisely this sort of legibility that readers often demand of translated work, which can result in selection bias; difficult, experimental, or what Cole Swenson calls “immanent” poetry is often left untranslated in favor of the more familiar and legible. It is essentially impressionistic, stubbornly elusive, and at times outright hallucinatory.
This book is presented in two sections, the English translation and the original Spanish versions. This may seem an odd approach, but when you learn that Rocío Cerón’s “enveloping, fierce live performances” mean you would gain a lot by trying the lines aloud for themselves “attentive not only to sound and rhythm but to the play and gripping of the words in the mouth.” “This is a work that demands to be spoken and heard”. Not only that, Cerón accompanies her works “with carefully orchestrated multimedia presentations that include still images, text, and film”.
For my full review go to http://messybooker.blogspot.com.au/20...
July 4, 2018
Galaxia. No anillos de satélite. Se necesita una nueva contraseña para regresar a tiempo al mundo. Ella dibuja sobre el agua un espiral.
Y la planta llevaba por nombre Victoria regia. El sur no existe, decía el coro, sin embargo, todavía pervive el Paraguay.
Ver lo suficiente. Respire poco a poco. A esta hora, e este olor, cualquier hombre se perdería.
Todo cielo acampaba en nuestros ojos.
Soplo cósmico.
Y la planta llevaba por nombre Victoria regia. El sur no existe, decía el coro, sin embargo, todavía pervive el Paraguay.
Ver lo suficiente. Respire poco a poco. A esta hora, e este olor, cualquier hombre se perdería.
Todo cielo acampaba en nuestros ojos.
Soplo cósmico.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews