Reviews

• These are brief, brilliant, diamond-hard poems (few are longer than eight lines), interspersed among more loosely-constructed prose poems of varying length. Her frequently startling imagery and jagged syntax make for a fresh, vivid, and at its best, revelatory poetry. Despite her hermeticism and the fragmentary nature of much of her work, it clearly captures a young poet's struggles with a literary vocation, with a feminine identity, and with the ever-lurking threat of the mental illness which ultimately destroyed her. Manifesting links to both the Spanish (Hispanic) modernists and to the current of French literature which runs from the 19-century poètes maudits to the Surrealists, she had created a fresh idiom of her own. Her youthful suicide was a tragic loss to literature. She is a figure who deserves to be much better known in the English-speaking world. This edition of most of her later poetry with facing Spanish text makes a real contribution to our acquaintance with modern Latin American poetry. The translations by Yvette Siegert remain reasonably close to the originals, and bring her startling images to life for the reader with limited Spanish. One wishes that she had included Pizarnik's earlier work, which originally brought her to the attention of figures as important as Octavio Paz and Julio Cortázar as well. A biographical sketch and some notes would also be appreciated.

• While contemporary to mid-century North American confessional poets, Pizarnik's poetry is as bright and at times strange as her brief life. Pizarnik was truly impressive as a writer between in his brief character before her untimely death at 36, and this seems to be most extensive collection of her work in English. I appreciate the bilingual edition because while Yvette Siegert's translations are quite good and readable in English, if you can read the Spanish, I strongly suggest you do so. I discovered PIzarnik in a poetry translation class in undergrad and have always been somewhat taken aback by the lack of translation in English. I am glad Pizarnik is becoming more accessible in the English speaking world.

• This is one of the most compelling, beautiful, painful, crucial, and sly collections of poetry I've ever read and, moreover, the translation gives Pizarnik's incredible technical skill room to burgeon, expand, and grow. The book overflows and since reading it, I've found myself returning to it every few weeks. Especially relevant in contemporary discourses (in poetry and in the world) that surround queer feminisms, dissociation and trauma, gender and grammars of sociality / how we become the way we are.

• Incredible book of poetry from one of the greatest poets of our time.

• I just received this book a few days ago. In translation, the verse poems and prose poems are very evocative; but sometimes it is hard to tell where they are coming from or where they are going. Pizarnik's poems require careful musing. I obviously need to spend more time with this book. The Spanish originals are included, and the translations follow the Spanish closely. Of course, the usual untranslatable heart of poetry is a problem; but, as far as I can tell, that the translations seem faithful emotionally and aesthetically to the very elusive originals. The book is nicely designed and produced. The reason that I am giving this book four stars instead of five is that there is no introduction and only four pages of notes at the end. Pizarnik is little-known in the English-speaking world, so an introduction that would place her within her own context seems necessary. There might be a good reason for this absence (there is information about Alejandra Pizarnik available on-line); but, from my point of view, the lack of any substantial supportive text is a missed opportunity.

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