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Grass Roots: Selected Poems

2016; University of Oklahoma; Volume: 90; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/wlt.2016.0289

1945-8134

Canaan Morse,

Cultural and Social Studies in Latin America

Cob, and others into English. The Zoque poet Mikeas Sánchez demonstrates how the indigenous poetry of Mexico weaves the ancient with such contemporary imagery as “My memory is the black box of a plane without return / How did it reach the libation of sea water of such sweet saltpeter,” as rendered into English by Shook. All through the anthology, the poems emphasize that indigenous poetry in Mexico is not an outsider art but a vibrant gathering of voices. Other poets such as Juan Hernández Ramírez, writing in Eastern Huasteca Nahuatl, echo the flower songs of the ancient Mexica, yet in the able translation of Coon and Shook, the “green moon” and “liquid flower,” the “dance with the wind,” brim over with a new light. Rothenberg offers translations from the Mazatec of Juan Gregorio Regino; his flowing cadence unleashes a similar energy as found in that other Mazatec poet whom Rothenberg translated: María Sabina. In “Cantares,” Hernández Ramírez chants: “Say whore. / Say mistress of fire. / Say macaw feathers. / Say fragrant flowers. / Say doors to the shy. / Say place of the images.” The anthology opens with sobering words by Shook about how “some 90 percent of the world’s 7,000 languages,” the languages present in the book, are “threatened with displacement,” yet there is comfort in knowing that Isthmus Zapotec poetry thrives. In the tradition of Pancho Nácar and Macario Matus, Víctor Terán offers some of the best poems in the anthology. An international poet who has translated Wordsworth and Bukowski into Zapoteco, Terán’s sharp imagery is well conveyed in translation. Knowing that he is standing his ground, defying the pressure to write in the language of the colonizers , Terán asks: “Now bring me / the birds / that you find in the trees, / so I can tell them / if the devil’s eyelashes are curled.” Anthony Seidman Hollywood, California Xiang Yang. Grass Roots: Selected Poems. John Balcom, tr. Brookline, Massachusetts. Zephyr Press. 2014. 123 pages. The poems in Grass Roots speak almost exclusively of the present moment, which in Xiang Yang’s case happens to be the point at which the aesthetics of Chinese poetic tradition and the original aspects of the poet’s voice combine to form something new. Translator John Balcom renders the poems in a measured, understated English that generally eschews the verb in favor of the noun and adjective, thus privileging states over changes. The subjective freedom of his translation suggests a familiarity with Xiang Yang’s poetry that is both advantageous and dangerous, because it allows for richly empathetic translations yet also enables decisions that could easily be called into question. Xiang Yang’s engagement with the Chinese classical tradition is clearly visible in formal structures like the ten-line poem (his own invention, yet to which he holds with classical assiduity), in traditional themes and subjects like the natural world and the Chinese lunar calendar, and, most importantly, in his commitment to concrete experience, the here and now of his poetic vision. Sequence and description are crucial to these poems; the poet attempts to step back and allow time and specific detail to dictate the shape of his narrative. Perhaps this is most evident in “The Four Seasons,” a majestic twenty-four-poem cycle that presents one poem for every solar term in the ancient Chinese calendar. The pieces are not just nominally related to the greater, traditional structure; they are instances of it, captured in narrative. The poet’s intentional connection to traditional modes of expression and reception is clear, and John Balcom’s translations communicate that. In “The Four Seasons,” for instance, he mostly confines his translations of titles to two words or two stresses, Dinos Siotis, ed. Crisis Smokestack Books / Dufour Editions In the last few years, the idyllic image of Greece as a sunny, relaxing vacation spot perfect for summer holiday has been replaced by its association with the word crisis. This collection from contemporary poets engages in painting the reality of this crisis—economic, political, and social—in harsh yet beautiful images and language. The collection illustrates how art is not useless but even more necessary in times of...