The question of who or what writes a poem, which agency creates which pieces, even if none of the players is exactly automatic, takes us a long way into Paz’s work, handsomely represented in this new collection.
— London Review of Books
Now in paperback, the definitive, life-spanning, bilingual edition of the poems by the Nobel Prize laureate
The Poems of Octavio Paz is the first retrospective collection of Paz’s poetry to span his entire writing career, from his first published poem, at age seventeen, to his magnificent last poem. This landmark bilingual edition contains many poems that have never been translated into English before, plus new translations based on Paz’s final revisions. Assiduously edited by Eliot Weinberger—who has been translating Paz for over forty years—The Poems of Octavio Paz also includes additional translations by the poet-luminaries Elizabeth Bishop, Paul Blackburn, Denise Levertov, Muriel Rukeyser, and Charles Tomlinson. Readers will also find Weinberger’s capsule biography of Paz, as well as illuminating notes on many poems in Paz’s own words taken from various interviews he gave throughout his long and singular life.
With additional translations by Elizabeth Bishop, Paul Blackburn, Denise Levertov, Muriel Rukeyser, and Charles Tomlinson
The question of who or what writes a poem, which agency creates which pieces, even if none of the players is exactly automatic, takes us a long way into Paz’s work, handsomely represented in this new collection.
— London Review of Books
Readers will marvel at Paz’s variety: haiku-like miniatures; the tempestuous book-length poem Sunstone; fast-moving prose poems; abstract odes; extended descriptions of places in Mexico, India, Afghanistan, and Japan.
— Publishers Weekly
The pleasure of this volume is the consistent, almost gentle voice that lays out for the reader Paz’s convictions and questions. ‘Gentle’ though should not indicate easy of peaceful or unquestioning. Paz raises his anxieties, doubts, and disruptions. Rather it is the artfulness with which he does so that carries the reader along.
— Three Percent
That rarity, an authoritative translation that should get sustained U.S. attention, and that often sounds right read aloud.