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Propellers: A New English Translation of Guillermo de Torre's Hèlices
SDSU Press furthers its reputation as a leader in Avant-garde scholarship with Willard Bohn's and Daniele Corsi's rendition of Guillermo de Torre's Hèlices entitled PROPELLERS
Propellers turns poems into air-borne machines of transport that alter the Newtonian time/space law of gravity. In this central and poorly understood work of the historical avant-gardes, the young Torre eagerly absorbs and metabolizes his multiple influences, transforming the mere mechanics of poetic experimentation as then practiced into a radical and necessary assertion of the individual then under assault by the ravages of weaponized consumer capitalism at its dangerous and disgusting peak. Board this plane for a dizzying flight into yourself.
Advance word on PROPELLERS
In 1923 Guillermo de Torre, a young Spanish poet born with the new century, published a revolutionary book of avant-garde poetry, Propellers (Hélices). Drawing on Italian Futurism, French/Chilean Creationism, and other literary and artistic movements that flourished in Europe in the years immediately before and after the First World War, de Torre proposes a radical new poetics, in which “Motors sound better than hendecasyllables,” as he declares in one of the poems. Largely ignored or underrated in its own time, today, nearly a century later, Propellers returns in English in Willard Bohn’s wily translation. Co-editor Daniele Corsi reproduces beautifully the typesetting of the poetic discourse, recreating the visual impact of the Spanish original. Perceptive essays by both editors open the volume, tracing the historical context in which the book first appeared, while also offering close readings of a number of the poems.
Anthony L. Geist
University of Washington
Propellers turns poems into air-borne machines of transport that alter the Newtonian time/space law of gravity. In this central and poorly understood work of the historical avant-gardes, the young Torre eagerly absorbs and metabolizes his multiple influences, transforming the mere mechanics of poetic experimentation as then practiced into a radical and necessary assertion of the individual then under assault by the ravages of weaponized consumer capitalism at its dangerous and disgusting peak. Board this plane for a dizzying flight into yourself.
Advance word on PROPELLERS
In 1923 Guillermo de Torre, a young Spanish poet born with the new century, published a revolutionary book of avant-garde poetry, Propellers (Hélices). Drawing on Italian Futurism, French/Chilean Creationism, and other literary and artistic movements that flourished in Europe in the years immediately before and after the First World War, de Torre proposes a radical new poetics, in which “Motors sound better than hendecasyllables,” as he declares in one of the poems. Largely ignored or underrated in its own time, today, nearly a century later, Propellers returns in English in Willard Bohn’s wily translation. Co-editor Daniele Corsi reproduces beautifully the typesetting of the poetic discourse, recreating the visual impact of the Spanish original. Perceptive essays by both editors open the volume, tracing the historical context in which the book first appeared, while also offering close readings of a number of the poems.
Anthony L. Geist
University of Washington
Paperback
Published September 21, 2018
4 people want to read
About the author
Guillermo de Torre
72 books1 followerGuillermo de Torre (Madrid, 1900 - Buenos Aires, 14 January 1971) was a Spanish essayist, poet and literary critic, a Dadaist and member of the Generation of '27. He is also notable as the brother-in-law of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.
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