Description
With the elliptical looping of a butterfly alighting on one's sleeve, the poems of Ana Lui sa Amaral arrive as small hypnotic miracles. Spare and beautiful in a way reminiscent both of Szymborska and of Emily Dickinson (it comes as no surprise that Amaral is the leading Portuguese translator of Dickinson), these poems--in Margaret Jull Costa's gorgeous English versions--seamlessly interweave the everyday with the dreamlike and ask "What's in a name?"
"How solid is a name if answered to," Amaral answers, but "like the Rose--no, like its perfume: ungovernable. Free." There is much freedom within Amaral's poetry, room for mysteries to multiply, and yet her beautiful lines are as clear as water:
And that time of smiles Which does, incidentally,
really exist, I swear, as does the fire
And the invisible sea, which with nothing will agree
Author: Ana Luísa Amaral
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Published: 03/05/2019
Pages: 160
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.45lbs
Size: 7.80h x 5.10w x 0.50d
ISBN13: 9780811228329
ISBN10: 0811228320
BISAC Categories:
- Poetry | European | Spanish & Portuguese
- Poetry | Women Authors
- Literary Criticism | European | Spanish & Portuguese