Selected Poetry of Delmira Agustini

by Agustini, Delmira; Caceres, Alejandro; Barnstone, Willis

• ISBN13: 9780809325375
• ISBN10: 0809325373
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-11-21
• Publisher: Southern Illinois Univ Pr

Summary

This graceful translation and bilingual edition is the first to bring English readers a representative sampling of the poetry Delmira Agustini published before her untimely death in 1914 at the age of twenty-seven. Translated by native Uruguayan Alejandro Caceres and including work from each of Agustini's four published books,Selected Poetry of Delmira Agustini: Poetics of Erosis a response to a resurgent interest not just in the poems but in the passionate and daring woman behind them and the social and political world she inhabited. Delmira Agustini was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1886 to wealthy parents of German and Italian descent. She published her first volume of poetry when she was twenty-one and followed with two more in the next six years. But her life was cut short in 1914, when Enrique Job Reyes, her ex-husband of less than two months, shot her to death and then turned the gun on himself. Too sensual and explicit for a literate, but Catholic, Uruguay, Agustini's work was neither accepted nor easily understood during her lifetime--but it is now being discovered and studied. Caceres is at the forefront of a new critical approach to Agustini's work. In synthesizing and reviewing both Spanish-language and English-language work on Agustini, he provides the definitive resource for future inquiry and research. Noted translator and poet Willis Barnstone provides the foreword to the volume. Agustini's poetry reflects the emotional world of a young woman in the early twentieth century. Rich with exotic and erotic imagery, the poems populate an intangible atmosphere vibrant with color and mythological symbols. Agustini celebrated sexuality in her work as part of the struggle to empower women and served as a forerunner of other feminist poets. Carefully selected for this bilingual,en faceedition, the poems collected here track and highlight Agustini's development and strengths as an artist--including her methods of experimentation, first relying onmodernistaforms and later abandoning them--and her focus on the figure of the male, which she portrays as the crux of devotion and attention but deems ultimately unreachable. Caceres's introduction presents biographical information and situates Agustini's work and life in a larger political, historical, and literary context, particularly themodernismomovement, whose followers broke linguistic and political ties with the pathos and excesses of romanticism.

Author Biography

Alejandro Cáceres, an associate professor of Spanish in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, and has lived in the United States since 1977. He is the editor of the definitive critical edition of the complete poems of Delmira Agustini, published in Uruguay by Ediciones de la Plaza.

Table of Contents

Foreword: A Poet of Life Who Prefigures the Future in Poetry Denied Her by Two Bullets Willis Barnstone	xiii
Preface	xvii
Acknowledgments	xxi
Introduction	1	(33)
De El libro blanco (Frágil) (1907)
From The White Book (Fragile) (1907)
El poeta leva el ancla	34	(2)
The Poet Weighs the Anchor
La estatua	36	(2)
The Statue
Una chispa	38	(2)
A Spark
Misterio: Ven ...	40	(2)
Mystery: Come ...
Intima	42	(4)
Intimate
Explosión	46	(2)
Explosion
Amor	48	(2)
Love
El intruso	50	(2)
The Intruder
La copa del amor	52	(4)
The Love Cup
Mi aurora	56	(2)
My Dawn
Desde lejos	58	(4)
From Far Away
De Cantos de la mañana (1910)
From Morning Songs (1910)
De "Elegías dulces"	62	(4)
From "Sweet Elegies"
E1 vampiro	66	(2)
The Vampire
(La noche entró en la sala adormecida)	68	(2)
The night entered in the sleeping room
(La intensa realidad de un sueño lúgubre)	70	(2)
The intense reality of a dismal dream
La ruptura	72	(2)
The Rupture
Lo inefable	74	(2)
The Ineffable
Las coronas	76	(2)
The Crowns
Las alas	78	(4)
The Wings
El nudo	82	(2)
The Knot
Fue al pasar	84	(2)
Passing By
Tú dormías ...	86	(2)
You Were Sleeping ...
Los relicarios dulces	88	(4)
The Sweet Reliquaries
E1 raudal 90
Torrent
Los retratos	92	(4)
The Portraits
De Los cálices vacíos (1913)
From The Empty Chalices (1913)
(Debout sur mon orgueil je veux montrer au soir)	96	(2)
(De pie, sobre mi orgullo, quiero mostrarte, ¡oh noche!)
Standing, on my pride, I want to show you, O night!
A Eros	98	(2)
To Eros
Tu boca	100	(2)
Your Mouth
Oh tú!	102	(4)
Oh You!
Día nuestro	106	(2)
Our Day
Visión	108	(4)
Vision
Con tu retrato	112	(2)
With Your Portrait
Otra estirpe	114	(2)
Another Lineage
E1 surtidor de oro	116	(2)
The Golden Fountain
Fiera de amor	118	(2)
Fierce of Love
Ceguera	120	(2)
Blindness
Inextinguible ...	122	(2)
Inextinguishable ...
Nocturno	124	(2)
Nocturnal
El cisne	126	(4)
The Swan
Plegaria	130	(14)
Entreaty
A lo lejos ...	.134
At a Distance .. .
De Los astros del abismo (1924)
From The Stars of the Abyss (1924)
Mis amores 138
My Loves
(Tu amor, esclavo, es como un sol muy fuerte)	144	(2)
Your love, slave, is like a burning sun
El arroyo	146	(2)
The Stream
Por tu musa	148	(2)
To your Muse
Diario espiritual	150	(4)
Spiritual Diary
La cita	154	(2)
The Encounter
Anillo	156	(2)
Ring
Serpentina	158	(2)
Serpentine
Sobre una tumba cándida	160	(2)
On a White Tomb
Mi plinto	162	(4)
My Plinth
El dios duerme	166	(2)
The God Sleeps
En el camino	168	(2)
On the Road
Boca a boca	170	(4)
Mouth to Mouth
Selene	174	(2)
Selene
Tus ojos, esclavos moros	176	(2)
Your Eyes, Moorish Slaves
Las voces laudatorias	178	(4)
The Laudatory Voices
El rosario de Eros
The Rosary of Eros
Cuentas de mármol	182	(2)
Beads of Marble
Cuentas de sombra	184	(2)
Beads of Shadow
Cuentas de fuego	186	(2)
Beads of Fire
Cuentas de luz	188	(2)
Beads of Light
Cuentas falsas	190
False Beads