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Cipango
Chilean poet Tomas Harris's Cipango - written in the 1980s, first published in 1992, and considered by many to be the author's best work to date - employs the metaphor of a journey. The poems collectively allude to the voyage of Columbus, who believed that he'd reached the Far East ("Cipango," or Japan), not the Americas. Building on that mistaken historical premise, Cipango comments on the oppressive legacy of colonialism in Latin America - manifested in twentieth-century Chile through the 1973 military coup by Augusto Pinochet and the brutal dictatorship there - and on the violence and degradation of contemporary urban society. The author's vision is of a decadent, apocalyptic world that nonetheless contains the possibility for regeneration.
Cipango is characterized by strange and obsessive imagery-strips of mud, will-o'-the-wisps, vacant lots, blue rats - juxtapositions of contemporary and archaic diction and of incongruous settings that range over time and place; the use of an understated irony; and a dark, incantatory voice. The speakers in various poems address personages such as Columbus, Marco Polo, and the Great Khan, and refer to a breadth of sources including Columbus's diaries, Genet's Our Lady of the Flowers, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Nerval's Aurelia, the Holocaust, Billie Holiday, and the film Goldfinger. The book's content and formal elements combine to produce a work of almost epic scope, one with universal appeal.
Tomas Harris's oeuvre, and in particular, Cipango, grows out of the Chilean poetic tradition - one that has produced such greats as Vicente Huibobro, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, and Nicanor Parra, all of whose poetry has been published to greater or lesser degree in translation in the United States. Harris's poetry, on the other hand, while celebrated in his native Chile and throughout Latin America, has been underrecognized in this country. This bilingual, en-face edition of Cipango, deftly translated by Daniel Shapiro, remedies that situation by bringing the lyricism and power of one of Chile's, and Latin America's, major poetic voices to a U.S. English-language readership. The copious end-notes following the poetry in the edition explain the book's numerous literary, historical, and other references.
Given Cipango's outstanding literary merit as well as the timeliness of its themes and the specific tradition it belongs to, it will be a valuable resource and source of pleasure for instructors and students of Latin American and comparative literatures as well as for poets, translators, and general readers in the United States.
Cipango is characterized by strange and obsessive imagery-strips of mud, will-o'-the-wisps, vacant lots, blue rats - juxtapositions of contemporary and archaic diction and of incongruous settings that range over time and place; the use of an understated irony; and a dark, incantatory voice. The speakers in various poems address personages such as Columbus, Marco Polo, and the Great Khan, and refer to a breadth of sources including Columbus's diaries, Genet's Our Lady of the Flowers, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Nerval's Aurelia, the Holocaust, Billie Holiday, and the film Goldfinger. The book's content and formal elements combine to produce a work of almost epic scope, one with universal appeal.
Tomas Harris's oeuvre, and in particular, Cipango, grows out of the Chilean poetic tradition - one that has produced such greats as Vicente Huibobro, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, and Nicanor Parra, all of whose poetry has been published to greater or lesser degree in translation in the United States. Harris's poetry, on the other hand, while celebrated in his native Chile and throughout Latin America, has been underrecognized in this country. This bilingual, en-face edition of Cipango, deftly translated by Daniel Shapiro, remedies that situation by bringing the lyricism and power of one of Chile's, and Latin America's, major poetic voices to a U.S. English-language readership. The copious end-notes following the poetry in the edition explain the book's numerous literary, historical, and other references.
Given Cipango's outstanding literary merit as well as the timeliness of its themes and the specific tradition it belongs to, it will be a valuable resource and source of pleasure for instructors and students of Latin American and comparative literatures as well as for poets, translators, and general readers in the United States.
- GenresPoetry
321 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1996
2 people are currently reading
19 people want to read
About the author
Tomás Harris
29 books7 followersThomas Harris Espinosa, más conocido como Tomás Harris (La Serena, 3 de junio de 1956), es un poeta chileno, miembro de la llamada generación literaria de 1980.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 10, 2010
From my review at the Quarterly Conversation:
In this mad, dark history there is nevertheless beauty. In moments of poetic grace, the lyrical skills of both Harris and translator Daniel Shapiro shine. The grimy urban rhythm of the poetry pulses beneath the skin of the poems, surfacing in moments of clarity and concision. The most successful moments in the work are when the language is boiled down to its essence, when the poetic voice takes on a liturgical note, and when the translator has freed himself sufficiently from the specter of fidelity (a slippery concept to begin with) to innovate. The first section of the book sets out, fugue-like, the themes that develop through the rest of the work.
In this mad, dark history there is nevertheless beauty. In moments of poetic grace, the lyrical skills of both Harris and translator Daniel Shapiro shine. The grimy urban rhythm of the poetry pulses beneath the skin of the poems, surfacing in moments of clarity and concision. The most successful moments in the work are when the language is boiled down to its essence, when the poetic voice takes on a liturgical note, and when the translator has freed himself sufficiently from the specter of fidelity (a slippery concept to begin with) to innovate. The first section of the book sets out, fugue-like, the themes that develop through the rest of the work.
March 15, 2021
Olvidaba el placer que me daba la lectura de voces mesiánicas, de pastores locos. El poemario sabe transmitir bien la locura, enraizada en esos baldíos donde el placer carnal tiene toda libertad pero a la vez también el miedo y en el uso indiscriminado de repeticiones de versos completos. Tiene demasiadas referencias a los viajes de Marco Polo, a la literatura francesa de la primera mitad del siglo XX (Jean Genet, Henri Michaux) que conjugan bien con los entornos de dolor y pecado que buscó erigir Harris en una escritura instantánea. Entornos fugaces, que se solidifican en capas como si fueran capas geológicas, donde los personajes lo forman sin poder ser identificados uno por uno, clara alusión a los dolores que vivió el autor durante la dictadura y su problema de alcoholismo.
March 14, 2015
Tomas Harris writes with punch and clarity, describing with recurrent metaphor the political, social, and economic changes that accompany a revolution from colonial to dictatorial regime. He alludes to and derives from numerous genres, addressing and honoring the poets and other artists who developed and perfected them, making each new along the way. Many are identified and readily noted. For your assistance the translator has provided end-notes at the back of the book, citing sources.
The title recalls the name for Japan, recalling that Columbus mistook his arrival in the New World for a landing in the Far East, and the poems in the four collections that form this compilation describe a journey. It is a journey of the traveler, the culture, the nation and the soul, filled with jarring images, multiple cultural references, danger, destruction, desolation, sex. A stunning voyage it is.
Original Spanish verses are included with translations by the scholar and poet Daniel Shapiro, and the translation are poems in themselves. Dr. Shapiro retains the power of the originals without losing structure or underlying suggestions Harris builds into the verses. He avoids the temptation of inserting interpretation, but also refrains from a word-for-word rendition that could diminish the strength of phrases. For ease of reading and with respect for the differences between the original and the translation, not all line breaks are the same. Keep reading. You'll get it.
The book itself is an object of beauty, the creamy paper and typeface showing quality and respect, on the dust cover illustration is a detail from a facsimile of the map Carta marina septemtrionalium terrarum (try saying that three times, fast) and aqua blue borders above and below, whose color is reflected in threads in the headband, the cloth on the book's spine where the signatures are bound.
The only complaint I have about this book is its price. Suggestion to the publisher: Release a paperback edition.
The title recalls the name for Japan, recalling that Columbus mistook his arrival in the New World for a landing in the Far East, and the poems in the four collections that form this compilation describe a journey. It is a journey of the traveler, the culture, the nation and the soul, filled with jarring images, multiple cultural references, danger, destruction, desolation, sex. A stunning voyage it is.
Original Spanish verses are included with translations by the scholar and poet Daniel Shapiro, and the translation are poems in themselves. Dr. Shapiro retains the power of the originals without losing structure or underlying suggestions Harris builds into the verses. He avoids the temptation of inserting interpretation, but also refrains from a word-for-word rendition that could diminish the strength of phrases. For ease of reading and with respect for the differences between the original and the translation, not all line breaks are the same. Keep reading. You'll get it.
The book itself is an object of beauty, the creamy paper and typeface showing quality and respect, on the dust cover illustration is a detail from a facsimile of the map Carta marina septemtrionalium terrarum (try saying that three times, fast) and aqua blue borders above and below, whose color is reflected in threads in the headband, the cloth on the book's spine where the signatures are bound.
The only complaint I have about this book is its price. Suggestion to the publisher: Release a paperback edition.
January 31, 2016
Cuando era chica, había una editorial que me pagaba por hacer críticas de sus libros. Los publicaba en la página web y su modo de pagar era permitiendo que me quedara con ellos.
Tomé este. Porque me gusta la poesía, porque es chileno, etcétera... pero no me gustó. Nada. Lo encontré duro, extremista, doloroso, no solo deseoso de mostrar la miseria, sino que de refregarse en ella. En su intención de quizá denunciar una época, me pareció que asesinaba también toda la belleza. Y siempre hay que proteger mi belleza.
Esa fue mi impresión, y no me gustó tenerla, porque tenía que criticar la obra públicamente y no quería dejarla como chaleco de mono. Así que mentí, un poquitín, intentando no ahuyentar a los potenciales clientes. Pero esa es la sensación que me dejó y, de hecho, ni siquiera conservo la copia, cuando por lo general me aferro a la poesía.
La denuncia social es algo tan común en la mayoría de los poetas latinos, lo que se entiende, dada la historia. Pero, a la vez, es tan delicado. Siempre tengo la duda de si se critica así, porque es un blanco fácil y comercial, o si se hace porque en verdad, genuinamente, sale del propio corazón. Además, se puede soportar solo cierta miseria, sin antes apagar la mente. Con esto no quiero decir que esté de acuerdo con las horripilancias que sucedieron, porque NO lo estoy, es solo que... a veces es tan obvia la poesía, y no ayuda a encontrar redención alguna.
En fin, que a mí no me gustó. Lloré, me hizo pensar y etcétera, pero no lo releería.
Tomé este. Porque me gusta la poesía, porque es chileno, etcétera... pero no me gustó. Nada. Lo encontré duro, extremista, doloroso, no solo deseoso de mostrar la miseria, sino que de refregarse en ella. En su intención de quizá denunciar una época, me pareció que asesinaba también toda la belleza. Y siempre hay que proteger mi belleza.
Esa fue mi impresión, y no me gustó tenerla, porque tenía que criticar la obra públicamente y no quería dejarla como chaleco de mono. Así que mentí, un poquitín, intentando no ahuyentar a los potenciales clientes. Pero esa es la sensación que me dejó y, de hecho, ni siquiera conservo la copia, cuando por lo general me aferro a la poesía.
La denuncia social es algo tan común en la mayoría de los poetas latinos, lo que se entiende, dada la historia. Pero, a la vez, es tan delicado. Siempre tengo la duda de si se critica así, porque es un blanco fácil y comercial, o si se hace porque en verdad, genuinamente, sale del propio corazón. Además, se puede soportar solo cierta miseria, sin antes apagar la mente. Con esto no quiero decir que esté de acuerdo con las horripilancias que sucedieron, porque NO lo estoy, es solo que... a veces es tan obvia la poesía, y no ayuda a encontrar redención alguna.
En fin, que a mí no me gustó. Lloré, me hizo pensar y etcétera, pero no lo releería.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews