Spanish poet Benito del Pliego places puns beside paradoxes, vivid imagery and insights in these five, brief poems from his latest collection
By Benito del Pliego and Sam Carter for Translation Tuesdays by Asymptote, part of the Guardian Books Network
Openly encouraging an oracular approach in which readers pose questions to a series of poems and identify either themselves or others through the answers they obtain, Fable showcases Benito del Pliego’s familiarly deft touch as he places puns alongside paradoxes and striking images next to penetrating insights in moving explorations of isolation and recollection. Continuing a career-long commitment to fostering meaningful interactions between a text and its interlocutors—whether readers, accompanying illustrations, or other poems in the collection — this Spanish poet highlights the unfamiliar in the familiar and makes poetry about the everyday seem anything but ordinary. These poems are taken from the collection Fable / Fábula, recently launched at McNally Jackson Books in New York.
—The editors at Asymptote
Related: Translation Tuesday: Colonel Lágrimas by Carlos Fonseca – extract
Continue reading...
