The Trees: Selected Poems 1967-2004(Salt Modern Poets in Translation)

Winner 2004 International Octavio Paz Prize for Poetry. Featuring "La Tierra Giro para Acercarnos" (The Earth Turned to Bring Us Closer) from the Oscar-nominated film "21 Grams", this new translation of selected poems and prose by Venezuela's leading poet Eugenio Montejo is translated from the original Spanish by Australian poet Peter Boyle. Covering Montejo's work from the 1960s to 2004 this major selection deals with universal themes of loss, death, family and love as well as reflecting on humanity's relationship to nature in an ever more materialistic and urbanized world. Montejo's poetry would be of special interest to all readers of poetry as well as to those interested in understanding a Latin American perspective on modernization and globalization.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Eugenio Montejo’s Earthdom Notes Translator’s Preface The Trees: Selected Poems (1967-2004) Los Árboles The Trees Islandia Iceland Güigüe 1918 Güigüe 1918 El Canto del Gallo The Rooster’s Song La Estatua de Pessoa The Statue of Pessoa Sobremesa Talking Across the Table Ítaca Ithaca La Terredad de un Pájaro The Earthdom of a Bird Caracas Caracas Mis Mayores My Ancestors Mi Amor My Love Orfeo Orpheus Caballo Real The King’s Horse Partida Departure Álbum de Familia Family Album Dos Rembrandt Two Rembrandts Hotel Antiguo Old Hotel Setiembre September Mare Nostrum Mare Nostrum Lisboa Lisbon El Otro The Other Terredad Earthdom Amantes Lovers La Tierra Giró para Acercarnos The Earth Turned to Bring Us Closer La Araña Veloz The Nimble Spider En el Café In the Café El Rezagado Left Behind La Poesía Poetry El Buey The Ox La Mesa Table Mural Escrito por el Viento Mural Written by the Wind Un Canto para el Tordo A Song for the Blackbird Despertar Waking Up La Casa The House Tiempo Transfigurado Transfigured Time Manoa Manoa Canción Song La Vida Life Vecindad Closeness Algunas Palabras A Few Words Adiós al Siglo XX Farewell to the Twentieth Century Elegía a la Muerte de mi Hermano Ricardo Elegy for the Death of my Brother Ricardo El Inocente The Simple Minded One Nana para Emilio Lullaby for Emilio Al Fin de Todo At the End of Everything Noches de Trasatlántico Nights on the Transatlantic Palabras de Boyero The Ox Driver’s Words La Hora de Hamlet Hamlet’s Hour Un Tordo A Thrush Adiós a mi Padre Saying Goodbye to my Father Final de Lluvia End of the Rain Medianoche Midnight Los Ausentes The Absent Ones Al Retorno Coming Back Canto Lacrado Hidden Song Opus Número Cero Opus Number Zero Una Fotografía de 1948 A Photograph from 1948 Partitura de la Cigarra The Cicada’s Score Selected Prose Writings The White Workshop Fragments Notes to the Poems

About the Author :
Eugenio Montejo was born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1938. He is the author of numerous books of poetry: Élegos (1967), Muerte y memoria (1972), Algunas palabras (1976), Terredad (1979), Trópico absoluto (1982), Alfabeto del mundo (1986), Adiós al siglo XX (1992), El azul de la tierra (1997), Partitura de la cigarra (1999) and Tiempo Transfigurado (2001). He has also published two collections of essays: La ventana oblicua and El taller blanco. In 1998 Eugenio Montejo received Venezuela’s National Prize for Literature. Peter Boyle is an Australian poet. His four collections of poetry are Coming home from the world (1994), The Blue Cloud of Crying (1997), What the painter saw in our faces (2001), and Museum of Space (2004). A selection of his translations of César Vallejo, I am going to speak of hope, was published by the Peruvian Consulate, Sydney in 1999. He lives in Sydney where he works as a teacher. Miguel Gomes is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Connecticut-Storrs. He is an essayist and a short-story writer.

Review :
Like all good translations these versions have the feel and stature of an original; poems of beauty adn loss, the wonder in the everyday - a thrush singing in a tree, a rooster's crow, the 'earthdom' of things, as Boyle translates Montejo's neologism terredad. This is deeply spiritual poetry for agnostic sensibilities, poetry written, Montejo notes in 'Fragments', as 'a prayer spoken to a God who only exists while the prayer lasts.' for here is a volume, both in original and translation, that understands the sacrament of poetry, the power - and fragility - of the thought once expressed, of the word spoken: "the bird you hear singing is in Greek," Montejo warns in his version of Cavafy's 'Ithaca' 'Don't translate it'. We can only be grateful that Boyle ignored this advice, to the immeasurable benefit of us all. -- Josephine Balmer Modern Poetry in Translation