The Oxford book of Latin American poetry : a bilingual anthology /

Vicuna (poet and artist) and Livon-Grosman (Hispanic studies, Boston College) have done a fine job with this welcome volume, which offers a unique, bilingual literary and historical treatment that will interest a wide readership. A principal element in the collection's success is its inclusion of poets and works more traditional collections often overlook. The anthology's organizing principle is "mestizo poetics," a complex, often-conflicted aesthetic representative of the region's racial, cultural, and linguistic hybridity. The volume uncovers the longevity of these poetic traditions, testimony that--despite the violence of the conquest and occupation, slave trading, and more recent political cataclysms--significant cultural memories continue to inform contemporary times. Revealing the rich variety of poetic forms and voices, the volume covers preconquest paintings and songs; Incan quipus; depictions of the conquest in extant codices; the role of sound in indigenous aesthetics; the oral poetry of contemporary Tzotzil Mayan; visual poems; skywriting; speech sounds of migrants remaking language; photographs (presented as texts and poems enhanced by photography); and poetry by revolutionary soldiers, work smuggled to neighboring towns, secretly published, and widely distributed. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers. J. C. Richards Park University

Stretching back to the pre-Columbian era, this bilingual anthology presents in chronological order by birth date over 125 poets from throughout Latin America. Editors Vicuna, a poet and editor, and Livon-Grosman (Hispanic studies, Boston Coll.) sacrifice comprehensiveness for content: many poets who are not household names are included at the expense of fewer poems by heavyweights like Borges, Neruda, and Paz. Modern poets are emphasized over older ones, but women and indigenous poets are heavily represented. Each entry is prefaced with a brief biographical sketch and a list of major works; unfortunately, the poems do not indicate provenance. Many poems appear in English here for the first time; some of the translations were commissioned specifically for this work, but some other translators (e.g., Samuel Beckett, Elizabeth Bishop, and Allen Ginsberg ) are famous in their own right. The English translation is printed in verse, but the original is displayed oddly in run-on prose lines, with verses separated by slashes. Two introductions, one by each editor, present an overview of mestizo poetics and a general historical overview. Verdict The most comprehensive, representative, and up-to-date survey in English of Latin American poetry, bar none.-Lawrence Olszewski, OCLC Lib., Dublin, OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.