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Eyes to See Otherwise: Poetry
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long awaited Selected Poems enables the reader to witness, from his 1960 collection The Eyes of a Double Vision to new unpublished poemsin a bilingual editionthe poetic and personal evolution of this "visionary poet of lyrical bliss, crystalline concentrations and infinite spaces" (Kenneth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.
- GenresPoetry
312 pages, Paperback
First published October 16, 2006
6 people are currently reading
228 people want to read
About the author
Homero Aridjis
109 books64 followersHomero Aridjis, a Mexican writer and diplomat, was born to a Greek father and Mexican mother; he was the youngest of five brothers. As a child, Aridjis would often walk up a hillside near his home to watch the migrating monarch butterflies. As he grew older logging thinned the forest. This and other events in his life caused him to co-found the Grupo de los Cien, the Group of 100, an association of one hundred artists and intellectuals that became heavily involved in trying to draw attention to and solve environmental problems in Mexico.
Aridjis has published 38 books of poetry and prose, many of them translated into a dozen languages. His achievements include: the Xavier Villarrutia Prize for best book of the year for Mirándola dormir, in 1964; the Diana-Novedades Literary Prize for the outstanding novel in Spanish, for Memorias del nuevo mundo, in 1988; and the Premio Grinzane Cavour, for best foreign fiction, in 1992, for the Italian translation of 1492, Vida y tiempos de Juan Cabezón de Castilla.1492 The Life and Times of Juan Cabezon of Castile was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Twice the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Aridjis has taught at Indiana University, New York University and Columbia, and held the Nichols Chair in Humanities and the Public Sphere at the University of California, Irvine. The Orion Society presented him with its John Hay Award for significant achievement in writing that addresses the relationship between people and nature. He received the Prix Roger Caillois in France for his poetry and prose and the Smederevo Golden Key Prize for his poetry. In 2005 the state of Michoacan awarded him the first Erendira State Prize for the Arts. Eyes to See Otherwise: Selected Poems of Homero Aridjis is a wide-ranging bilingual anthology of his poetry.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
Aridjis has published 38 books of poetry and prose, many of them translated into a dozen languages. His achievements include: the Xavier Villarrutia Prize for best book of the year for Mirándola dormir, in 1964; the Diana-Novedades Literary Prize for the outstanding novel in Spanish, for Memorias del nuevo mundo, in 1988; and the Premio Grinzane Cavour, for best foreign fiction, in 1992, for the Italian translation of 1492, Vida y tiempos de Juan Cabezón de Castilla.1492 The Life and Times of Juan Cabezon of Castile was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Twice the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Aridjis has taught at Indiana University, New York University and Columbia, and held the Nichols Chair in Humanities and the Public Sphere at the University of California, Irvine. The Orion Society presented him with its John Hay Award for significant achievement in writing that addresses the relationship between people and nature. He received the Prix Roger Caillois in France for his poetry and prose and the Smederevo Golden Key Prize for his poetry. In 2005 the state of Michoacan awarded him the first Erendira State Prize for the Arts. Eyes to See Otherwise: Selected Poems of Homero Aridjis is a wide-ranging bilingual anthology of his poetry.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 10, 2024
Burn the boats
that the old shadows
will not follow us
to the new land
that those who travel with me
will not think it possible
to return to what they were
in the lost country
that we find
only the sea at our backs
and the unknown before us
that we walk without fear
through the ashes
into the here and now
that the old shadows
will not follow us
to the new land
that those who travel with me
will not think it possible
to return to what they were
in the lost country
that we find
only the sea at our backs
and the unknown before us
that we walk without fear
through the ashes
into the here and now
July 6, 2008
taken from
Insomnia Begins In The Cradle (El Insomnio Comienza En La Cuna)
It is raining in my room,
the water soaks the walls.
The room has no ceiling;
the sky swims in my chest.
Its foliage gurgling with rain
a tree sprouts in my mind.
All night long the poplars are chanting
the rain drums on my hands.
All night through my body
I feel the slippery body of the rain.
All night I see the blank seeds
teeming from my eyes.
At dawn I rise. I touch the light
with my liquid hands. I am rain.
Llueve en mi cuarto,
el agua moja las paredes.
El cuarto no tiene tejado,
el cielo nada en mi pecho.
Un árbol crece en mi mente
en su follaje gorjea la lluvia.
Toda la noche cantan los álamos
la lluvia suena en mi manos.
Toda la noche siento en mi cuerpo
el cuerpo resbaladizo de la lluvia.
Toda la noche veo llover
las semillas blancas de mis ojos.
Al alba me levanto. Toco la luz
con manos liquidas. Yo soy la lluvia.
Insomnia Begins In The Cradle (El Insomnio Comienza En La Cuna)
It is raining in my room,
the water soaks the walls.
The room has no ceiling;
the sky swims in my chest.
Its foliage gurgling with rain
a tree sprouts in my mind.
All night long the poplars are chanting
the rain drums on my hands.
All night through my body
I feel the slippery body of the rain.
All night I see the blank seeds
teeming from my eyes.
At dawn I rise. I touch the light
with my liquid hands. I am rain.
Llueve en mi cuarto,
el agua moja las paredes.
El cuarto no tiene tejado,
el cielo nada en mi pecho.
Un árbol crece en mi mente
en su follaje gorjea la lluvia.
Toda la noche cantan los álamos
la lluvia suena en mi manos.
Toda la noche siento en mi cuerpo
el cuerpo resbaladizo de la lluvia.
Toda la noche veo llover
las semillas blancas de mis ojos.
Al alba me levanto. Toco la luz
con manos liquidas. Yo soy la lluvia.
April 17, 2019
Top tier - of favorite poets
September 25, 2020
Um magnífico poeta.
❤
Intenso e suave.
*
"hasta que las puertas de tu ciudad
fortificada con estatutos inviolables
me acojan como habitante
de la vida que en ti se desenvuelve
igual que la lluvia de silencio
sobre tu cabeza
Gradualmente me impregnaré de ti
hasta que sea humo en tu voz
luz en tus ojos
y haga sobre mis hombros tu futuro..."
❤
Intenso e suave.
*
"hasta que las puertas de tu ciudad
fortificada con estatutos inviolables
me acojan como habitante
de la vida que en ti se desenvuelve
igual que la lluvia de silencio
sobre tu cabeza
Gradualmente me impregnaré de ti
hasta que sea humo en tu voz
luz en tus ojos
y haga sobre mis hombros tu futuro..."
Read
February 15, 2019Professor Yepes–"Eyes to See Otherwise" is a careful selection that offers a precious panoramic view of Aridjis' poetry in Spanish from 1960 to 2001, with English versions by thirteen well-known translators. It documents the spiral progression from the clean free verse of "Unfolded Eyes", Aridjis first book in 1960, to the complex meditative tone of his 2001 book, "The Eye of the Whale." In the often wet Bowdoin summer, when there is some time for tranquility, each of these poems leaves me with a quiet sense of wholeness:
Over the month of June the rain is falling
. . .
Deep in your heart the young girls laugh (7).
This double awareness of what is going on around you and within you at any given moment is one of the "eco-traits" in Homero Aridjis' poetry, and probably a reason why he is one of the most widely read living Latin American poets today. His having been president of International PEN, the worldwide association of writers, from 1997 to 2003, helps, too, as well as his activism in favor of the environment in Mexico and in favor of free speech around the world.
The motif of the double is all over the book. Mirrors, two-edged identities, woman within man, daughters in fathers, self-portraits, the otherness in the title itself, all add to this duplicity. And it gets amplified by its being a bilingual edition. Reading a poem in two languages, like listening to a song in two versions, enhances your awareness of how the piece is built and offers you insights into how two voices approach the wor(l)d. One particularly acute case is Aridjis' attempt to capture a verse by Shakespeare ("I met the night mare," quoted by Borges) in a Spanish that loses the pun: "la yegua de la noche" is just the night compared to a literal female horse. But then, translated back into English by George McWhirter, the double-meanings are restored:
The night mare
made him come in dreams
and kiss the air (227).
Wet summer dreams, indeed.
Aridjis draws from the Mexican, Hispanic, and classic Western imaginaries to weave a serene poetry of epiphany and deep connection to nature: "Water speaks in pure clarity" (81). From angels to Aztec goddesses, from the Spanish Civil War to the extinction of the gray whale, from the erotic to the communal, this poetry maps the contemporary experience of an interdependent world. Its prophetic, introspective and tender tone does not exclude the monstrous and the erudite. The book joins the revision of values, of how the human --the eye, the I-- is de-centered, in an era of environmental urgency.
Over the month of June the rain is falling
. . .
Deep in your heart the young girls laugh (7).
This double awareness of what is going on around you and within you at any given moment is one of the "eco-traits" in Homero Aridjis' poetry, and probably a reason why he is one of the most widely read living Latin American poets today. His having been president of International PEN, the worldwide association of writers, from 1997 to 2003, helps, too, as well as his activism in favor of the environment in Mexico and in favor of free speech around the world.
The motif of the double is all over the book. Mirrors, two-edged identities, woman within man, daughters in fathers, self-portraits, the otherness in the title itself, all add to this duplicity. And it gets amplified by its being a bilingual edition. Reading a poem in two languages, like listening to a song in two versions, enhances your awareness of how the piece is built and offers you insights into how two voices approach the wor(l)d. One particularly acute case is Aridjis' attempt to capture a verse by Shakespeare ("I met the night mare," quoted by Borges) in a Spanish that loses the pun: "la yegua de la noche" is just the night compared to a literal female horse. But then, translated back into English by George McWhirter, the double-meanings are restored:
The night mare
made him come in dreams
and kiss the air (227).
Wet summer dreams, indeed.
Aridjis draws from the Mexican, Hispanic, and classic Western imaginaries to weave a serene poetry of epiphany and deep connection to nature: "Water speaks in pure clarity" (81). From angels to Aztec goddesses, from the Spanish Civil War to the extinction of the gray whale, from the erotic to the communal, this poetry maps the contemporary experience of an interdependent world. Its prophetic, introspective and tender tone does not exclude the monstrous and the erudite. The book joins the revision of values, of how the human --the eye, the I-- is de-centered, in an era of environmental urgency.
January 28, 2009
This man taught an entire seminar in English just for me. One of the funnest, if not most well prepared, guest lecturers ever, I asked him to sign my copy on our last day before I knew what a celebrated poet he is in Mexico.
January 25, 2011
One of my favorite Latin American poets, often underappreciated.
April 27, 2017
4 1/2 stars
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews