Elsewhere

by Eliot Weinberger (Editor)

“In a century of mass migration and deportation, political exile and casual tourism, being elsewhere was the common condition. For the moderns, elsewhere was not merely physical location or dislocation, but was intrinsic to the work. Victor Segalen, in China at the beginning of the century, writes of the ‘manifestation of Diversity,’ a ‘spectacle of Difference’: everything that is ‘foreign, strange, unexpected, surprising, mysterious, amorous, superhuman, heroic, and even divine, everything that is Other.’ Picasso put it more bluntly: ‘Strangeness is what we wanted to make people think about because we were quite aware that our world was becoming very strange.’ After Guillaume Apollinaire’s ‘Zone’—perhaps the most influential poem of the century—collage, the juxtaposition of disparate elements, the manifestation of diversity, the making of the strange, became the primary new form of the new poetry.

“From the countless examples, here are a few instances of the collage of a poet pasted, physically or mentally, onto a specific unfamiliar landscape.”

So begins Eliot Weinberger’s essayistic travels into the nature of “journey” poetry. From Kōtarō Takamura's poem about Paris, to Fernando Pessoa’s “At the wheel of the Chevrolet on the road to Sintra,” to Apollinaire’s “Ocean-Letter,” Weinberger introduces fourteen poems illustrating the contemporary situation of being “elsewhere.”

Genres: Poetry

97 pages, Paperback

First published December 17, 2013

About the author

Eliot Weinberger is a contemporary American writer, essayist, editor, and translator. His work regularly appears in translation and has been published in some thirty languages.
Weinberger first gained recognition for his translations of the Nobel Prize winning writer and poet Octavio Paz. His many translations of the work of Paz include the Collected Poems 1957-1987, In Light of India, and Sunstone. Among Weinberger's other translations are Vicente Huidobro's Altazor, Xavier Villaurrutia's Nostalgia for Death, and Jorge Luis Borges' Seven Nights. His edition of Borges’ Selected Non-Fictions received the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism.

Reviews

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection features translations from poets writing about places that are not home, where they are exiles or tourists. Sections on Paris, New York, Los Angeles, trains/boats, and imagined places. My library purchased the "first 75" titles from Open Letter Press, so I've been saving the poetry titles for this month!

Some favorite moments:

Jorge Carrera Andrade comparing the eiffel tower to a llama

The Dawn by Federico Garcia Lorca
"Dawn in New York has
four columns of mire
and a hurricane of black pigeons
splashing in the putrid waters...."

The epigram, Stay by Ingeborg Bachmann
"Now the journey is ending,
the wind is losing heart.
Into your hands it's falling,
a rickety house of cards....."

[jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

a slim anthology, elsewhere - edited by poet, essayist, and translator eliot weinberger (paz, borges, et al.) - collects fourteen disparate poems "of a poet pasted, physically or mentally, onto a specific unfamiliar landscape." included are the likes of huidobro, garcía lorca, pessoa, brecht, hikmet, apollinaire, amongst others. split into six parts, the collection features three poems about paris, a pair each about new york, los angeles, and trains & cars, four about imaginary countries, and a single poem serving as a coda. thematically, elsewhere is an intriguing assemblage of works, but perhaps not the best introduction to any of the included poets.

the dawn (excerpt) by federico garcía lorca

the light is buried under chains and clangor,
threatened openly by rootless science.
there are people staggering sleepless through the boroughs
as though they've just escaped a shipwreck of blood.

[Jim Coughenour · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you ask only for what's here, you get everything. This is a very slim book and every page is alive. I ordered it thanks to the Goodreads algorithm that tells us every month about new books by authors we've reviewed. On the theory that anything by Eliot Weinberger is worth reading (a theory so far absolutely verified), I read it.

The idea of the book is fourteen manifestations of diversity, "instances of the collage of a poet pasted, physically or mentally, onto a specific unfamiliar landscape." Sounds like nothing. Any poem might claim the same. But Weinberger has chosen well, and strangely, from several poets I've never heard of as well as a quartet of favorites: Lorca, Hikmet, Pessoa and Villaurrutia – the last of whom I only know because Weinberger translated a collection by him back in 1992, and I was lucky enough to discover it.

I could happily quote from every poem: lines from Lorca's dystopian dawn in NYC after the 1929 crash or Villaurrutia's erotic dream-heavy nocturne about the lost angels of Los Angeles. Or Nâzim Hikmet's "Things I Didn't Know I Loved":

I never knew I liked the night pitch-black
sparks fly from the engine
I didn't know I loved sparks

Or the delicate poem about drinking a glass of water by Toriko Takarabe that contains the unaccountable line

But when the water passes down my throat
I wouldn't think of a Mongolian man following his sheep.

Weinberger's brief notes at the end of each poem are stuffed with surprise. Who knew about the "new Nicaraguan vanguard," of which the 15 year old poet Joaquín Pasos was a member, or that "there is a book to be written about the network of poets that once existed across the African diaspora from the 1920s to the 1970s, embracing such movements as Negritude and Black Nationalism"? Plus, there's a 15th poem hidden in these notes by the supposed screenwriter Charles Reznikoff who spent two years in the 1930s watching the flies on his desk. This one's from a sequence called "Autobiography: Hollywood":

It has been raining for three days.
The faces of the giants
on the bill-boards
still smile,
but the gilt has been washed from the sky:
we see the iron world.

[Ferris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic! A book of poetry by poets from around the world, all of which are written about being "elsewhere". Poems about Paris by a Chilean, a Japanese, and an Andean. Better yet, each poem is followed by a brief biographical note about the poet and if he was affiliated with a particular school of poetry. Only question....why no women? Other than the gender issue, this collection is a gem!!

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent anthology of poets musing on countries they are foreign to. Includes works by Huidobro, Pessoa, Lorca, Senghor, Brecht, and Nazim Hikmet (my favorite poem in the book). My one complaint: I wish it were twice as long.

[The Devil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elsewhere by Eliot Weinberger is a compilation of poems that are written about being somewhere new. The book is divided into sections depending on where the author is writing about. I liked this book because it showed me a new perspective on places I've been to before like New York and Los Angeles. I also got to read about the Eiffel Tower in one poem and see it through the author's eyes. I enjoyed reading about places I both had visited and had never seen before. I enjoy reading because it lets me see things through other people's eyes, and I definitely felt that through these poems. I recommend this book to people who love traveling and the introspection that comes with it.

[Cody Stetzel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think an interesting anthology, a fun project, and a careful consideration of selected authors. The small scope of the overall work seemed a bit limiting to the total vantage of the project, though, and the lack of women seemed particularly noticeable.

[Aaron McQuiston · Rating 3 out of 5]

The general theme of "Elsewhere" is one of poetry on travel and being a displaced poet (stranger in a strange land type stuff). I'm way behind on my poetry reading and not nearly as educated in poetry as I am in fiction. When I read a collection of poems, I can appreciate the art and the imagery, the turns of phrase and cunning language, but as I whole I feel unable to give a thick definition on what is good and not good. I do not know the different schools of thought, the different eras of poetry, and how some phases have faded and some have survived or been revived. I just know what grips me and makes me want to reread, reread, reread aloud to friends, lovers, and family. Those are the poems that must be doing something right.

This short collection is cut into six parts, each part with one to three poems that exemplify the theme, without giving anything away, I will focus on the one poem in the entire collection that really sticks out. "Things I Didn't Know I Loved" by Nazim Hikmet is a poem about travelling by train and a train of memories and feelings well up. Written a year before his death, it is a great reflection on things that Hikmet did not realize that he missed and loved. This string of memories and regrets makes for emotions to well up and a choice to either blow them off or thinks about the things I, the reader, need to reflect on as well.

I enjoyed this collection, even though I don't know much about poetry, and my biggest complaint is that it is so short. Clocking in at under 100 very sparse pages, it feels like there could have been more to this, a broader spectrum or more examples. As it is, "Elsewhere" is a collection that will be reread periodically.

[Chad Post · Rating 4 out of 5]

DISCLAIMER: I am the publisher of the book and thus spent approximately two years reading and editing and working on it. So take my review with a grain of salt, or the understanding that I am deeply invested in this text and know it quite well. Also, I would really appreciate it if you would purchase this book, since it would benefit Open Letter directly.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were several interesting poems, others not so much. Favorites: Cathedral in the Thrashing Rain and Eiffel Tower; Things I Didn't Know I Loved and At the Wheel of the Chevrolet on the Road to Sintra (written in 1928!!). I liked Stay best, probably because it was straight-forward, as well as the last poem in the book.

[tana · Rating 5 out of 5]

thanks to a goodread giveaway, I received this sparse and, in my opinion, well chosen anthology of some major poets. I wouldn't consider this an entre, more like an opportunity to enjoy friends you already know, perhaps some of their works you did not...

[Ethan Unklesbay · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's all on the blog.
https://unklethan.wordpress.com/2016/...