Another reminder:  

 OK, just one more since this has been a "literary" day all around here at our humble abode.

 I've been doing the Stafford Challenge since mid-January, not missing a day. A poem (even if just three lines) daily. Three more weeks to go. Some of my contributions are odd, like this one:

 A word to the wise. This "service" is insane. It takes me half an hour to log in because since Google acquired blogging, one signs into a Google account, which did not exist when many blogs were created, but they only accept sign-up email to sign in (or manage) even if that e-mail is defunct, obviously not a good place to send any tech message.  One must use "another account" every time and use information from 25 years ago to access one's old blog. They don't allow one to change the base contact. Not fun.

 Oh my. It has been two years since I posted. That was when I was plugging two books I had published ALL POETRY by Paulo Leminski, co-trans. with Ivan Justen Santana, and FIRST CHICO BUARQUE, all about his historic 1978 LP. This year my "book" is going to be a PDF in the Great E-book Exchange at Poetry Super Highway on line.  51 pages because of my venerable nickname Anjo 51. Some day I will learn how to make PDFs available on this blog or at my University site. I am still semi-Luddite sorry.

 William Allegrezza. To Hush All the Dead (Buffalo, NY: BlazeVOX [Books], 2022).

 

Despite the title, this is a very expressive and lively collection. Word constructions appear, happen, and grow, even if they might refer to post-life situations. Throughout one is anxious to know who or what these "dead" might be: deceased loved ones? unfortunate victims? impertinent others? inner voices seeking expression? These nicely organized poems comprise an up/down dialectic of trouble/solutions. There is a phrase thirty pages in concerning "hush my dead" but the various implications of dying/death occur passim, in each of the six sections of the book.  If you like the lyrico-cartographic approach, the first section is the most attractive: Maps and Map Making. The mood is moved by down notions of malaise, resignation, ennui, angst... but poetic discovery overcomes all. The second section involves "The Waiting" and senses of bereft continue in a "wicked world". The lexicon of loss and insufficiency provokes further pondering.  Section three "Exploring the Story" invites writerly contemplation. Telling can help with any feeling of the situation not being right. The division of "Decisions, Flags, and the Return" is desperate for imagination to guide one through failure, destruction, losing, decay... and up moments of hope and illumination. Section "Shorts" is light in spite of darkness and draws all strings together. The final section "Haibuns" is a high. Death is there, wind is blowing, and maps recur in their evident significance.  This journey has been mapped and concluded with so much: waiting, deciding, clarifying, traveling, perceiving, linking, inter-relating.  Did the lyric voice achieve his goal of hushing the dead? All of them? You read. You wonder. You decide.

 Colleagues around North America and worldwide:  as the holiday gift-giving season is upon us and this year's library ordering is in full swing, here's another reminder of this opportunity.  For individual enjoyment, class adoptions, and institutional acquisitions.  (Vendor =  Amazon ).

 

All Poetry by Paulo Leminski. Charles A. Perrone and Ivan Justen Santana, translators. Hanover, CT: New London Librarium, 2022.

 

"The release of this translation of Paulo Leminski’s collected poems is a major event. ... If life is a jingle-jangle pile of shards of broken poetry, Leminski is a crack treasure hunter."  Piers Armstrong, Cal Arts. Chásqui 51.2 (2022). On line.

 

"Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of his translators, Leminski now lives in English as

well... The tone, always shifting, is pitch perfect, and the formal fireworks are delightfully replicated... a major achievement ... it reminds us all that the world of poetry is truly global in nature." Earl E. Fitz, Vanderbilt Univ. Chásqui 51.2 (2022). On line.

 

"English readers should celebrate having access to his work ... this collection brings a great new poet to light ... the translators have crafted accessible but aware translations that allow us to hear Leminski distinctly in English. This is a collection that should be on any shelf."  William Allegrezza (MoriaBooks, Moss Trill, Indiana University Northwest). Compulsive Reader(10-02-220).

 

" ... a full banquet ... the translators ... successfully navigate all the challenging currents of Leminski’s inventions... a major, perhaps magical accomplishment, carried out with versatility and creativity, a prime example of what Haroldo de Campos called “transcreation,” or innovative re-writing of an original text... All Poetryshould attract a readership in world literature."  K. David Jackson, Yale University. Review: Latin American Literature and Arts(Spring 2023).