Night Journey

by Negroni, Maria

• ISBN13: 9780691090979
• ISBN10: 0691090971
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-02-01
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

One of South America's most celebrated contemporary poets takes us on a fantastic voyage to mysterious lands and seas, into the psyche, and to the heart of the poem itself.Night Journeyis the English-language debut of the work that won Mariacute;a Negroni an Argentine National Book Award. It is a book of dreams--dreams she renders with surreal beauty that recalls the work of her compatriot Alejandra Pizarnik, with the penetrating subtlety of Borges and Calvino. In sixty-two tightly woven prose poems, Negroni deftly infuses haunting imagery with an ironic, personal spirituality. Effortlessly she navigates the nameless subject to the slopes of the Himalayas, to a bar in Buenos Aires, through war, from icy Scandinavian landscapes to the tropics, across seas, toward a cemetery in the wake of Napoleon's hearse, by train, by taxis headed in unrequested directions, past mirrors and birds, between life and death. Night Journeyreflects a mastery of a traditional form while brilliantly expressing a modern condition: the multicultural, multifaceted individual, ever in motion. Displacement abounds: a "medieval tabard" where a pelvis should be, a "lipless grin," a "beach severed from the ocean." In one poem "nomadic cities" whisk past. In another, smiling cockroaches loom in a visiting mother's eyes. Anne Twitty, whose elegant translations are accompanied by the Spanish originals, remarks in her preface that the book's "indomitable literary intelligence" subdues an unspoken terror--helplessness. Yet, as observed by the angel Gabriel, the consoling voice of wisdom, only by accepting the journey for what it is can one discover its "hidden splendor," the "invisible center of the poem." As readers of this magnificent work will discover, this is a journey that, because its every fleeting image conjures a thousand words of fertile silence, can be savored again and again.

Table of Contents

Kidnapped by the Inexorable Translator's Introduction	ix
Esqueletos bajo el cielo	2	(1)
Skeletons under the Sky	3	(1)
La jaula en flor	4	(1)
Cage in Bloom	5	(1)
Catastrofe	6	(1)
Catastrophe	7	(1)
Ecuyere y militar	8	(1)
Equestrienne and Officer	9	(1)
Los bosques de marmol	10	(1)
The Marble Forests	11	(1)
La perdida	12	(1)
Loss	13	(1)
Gabriel	14	(1)
Gabriel	15	(1)
Heraldica	16	(1)
Heraldry	17	(1)
Van Gogh	18	(1)
Van Gogh	19	(1)
The Great Watcher	20	(1)
The Great Watcher	21	(1)
El espejo del alma	22	(1)
Mirror of the Soul	23	(1)
La ciudad nomade	24	(1)
Nomadic City	25	(1)
El padre	26	(1)
The Father	27	(1)
Dialogo con Gabriel I	28	(1)
Dialogue with Gabriel I	29	(1)
Lido	30	(1)
Lido	31	(1)
La visita	32	(1)
The Visit	33	(1)
La guia telefonica	34	(1)
The Telephone Book	35	(1)
El mapa del Tiempo	36	(1)
The Map of Time	37	(1)
Napoleon II	38	(1)
Napoleon II	39	(1)
Los amantes	40	(1)
The Lovers	41	(1)
Los ojos de Dios	42	(1)
The Eyes of God	43	(1)
El caballo blanco	44	(1)
The White Horse	45	(1)
El bebe	46	(1)
The Baby	47	(1)
Las tres madonas	48	(1)
The Three Madonnas	49	(1)
Tout cherche tout	50	(1)
Tout cherche tout	51	(1)
Carta a Sevres	52	(1)
Letter to Sevres	53	(1)
El diccionario infinito	54	(1)
The Infinite Dictionary	55	(1)
Las ventanas del siglo	56	(1)
Windows on the Century	57	(1)
Dialogo con Gabriel II	58	(1)
Dialogue with Gabriel II	59	(1)
Los dos cielos	60	(1)
The Two Heavens	61	(1)
Fata Morgana	62	(1)
Fata Morgana	63	(1)
New Jersey	64	(1)
New Jersey	65	(1)
Rosamundi	66	(1)
Rosamundi	67	(1)
Encrucijada	68	(1)
Crossroads	69	(1)
La ceguera	70	(1)
Blindness	71	(1)
Midgard	72	(1)
Midgard	73	(1)
La ropa	74	(1)
Clothes	75	(1)
El diluvio	76	(1)
The Deluge	77	(1)
Sleeping Beauty	78	(1)
Sleeping Beauty	79	(1)
El viaje	80	(1)
The Journey	81	(1)
Die Zeit	82	(1)
Die Zeit	83	(1)
Dialogo con Gabriel III	84	(1)
Dialogue with Gabriel III	85	(1)
Teoria de la luz	86	(1)
Theory of Light	87	(1)
Los hilos del ser	88	(1)
Threads of Being	89	(1)
Over Exposure	90	(1)
Over Exposure	91	(1)
Eternidad	92	(1)
Eternity	93	(1)
Los osos	94	(1)
The Bears	95	(1)
El mundo no termina	96	(1)
The World Doesn't End	97	(1)
Cuento de hadas	98	(1)
Fairytale	99	(1)
Terra Incognita	100	(1)
Terra Incognita	101	(1)
Peridural y despojo	102	(1)
Epidural and Plunder	103	(1)
Hieros gamos	104	(1)
Hieros gamos	105	(1)
Dialogo con Gabriel IV	106	(1)
Dialogue with Gabriel IV	107	(1)
Simurgh	108	(1)
Simurgh	109	(1)
El libro de los seres	110	(1)
The Book of Being	111	(1)
El techo del mundo	112	(1)
The Roof of the World	113	(1)
El juego sin nombre	114	(1)
The Anonymous Game	115	(1)
Hurqalya, ciudad peregrina	116	(1)
Hurqalya, Peregrine City	117	(1)
Los cielos del otono	118	(1)
Autumn Skies	119	(3)
Teoria del buen morir	122	(1)
Theory of a Good Death	123	(1)
Casandra	124	(1)
Cassandra	125	(1)
Carta a mi misma	126	(1)
Letter to Myself	127