Unthinkable Tenderness

by Gelman, Juan; Lindgren, Joan

• ISBN13: 9780520205864
• ISBN10: 0520205863
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-04-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

Juan Gelman is Argentina's leading poet, but his work has been almost unknown in the United States until now. With this selection, chosen and superbly translated by Joan Lindgren, Gelman's lush and visceral poetry comes alive for an English-speaking readership. Gelman is a stark witness to the brutality of power, and his poems reflect his suffering at the hands of the Argentine military government (his son, daughter-in-law, and grandchild were "disappeared"). While political idealism infuses his writing, he is not a servant of ideology. Themes of family, exile, the tango, Argentina, and Gelman's Jewish heritage resonate throughout his poems, works that celebrate life while confronting heartache and loss. "remembering their little bones when it rains/ the compantilde;erosstomp on darkness/set forth from death/wander the tender night/I hear their voices like living faces"--fromRemembering Their Little Bones

Table of Contents

Foreword	xi	(2)
Eduardo Galeano
Editor's Preface	xiii
FROM INTERRUPTIONS I	1	(52)
Foreword	3	(4)
Julio Cortazar
Relations	7	(6)
Somata	9	(1)
Confidences	10	(1)
Noises	11	(1)
Clarities	12	(1)
Facts	13	(8)
What They Don't Know	15	(1)
Deaths	16	(1)
Graces	17	(1)
Sheets	18	(1)
Arte Poetica	19	(2)
Notes	21	(10)
Note I	23	(1)
Note XII	24	(1)
Note XVII	25	(1)
Note XVIII	26	(1)
Note XX	27	(1)
Note XXI	28	(1)
Note XXV	29	(2)
Open Letter	31	(6)
XIII	33	(1)
XVII	34	(3)
So Gently	37	(10)
Alone	39	(1)
Still Harboring	40	(1)
Us the Poor	41	(1)
Killing the General Defeat	42	(1)
Remembering Their Little Bones	43	(1)
They Are Waiting	44	(1)
They Wait	45	(2)
Commentaries	47	(6)
Commentary I (saint teresa)	49	(1)
Commentary VI (saint teresa)	50	(1)
Commentary XX	51	(2)
FROM INTERRUPTIONS II	53	(116)
Under Foreign Rain (Footnotes to Defeat)	55	(30)
I	57	(2)
II	59	(1)
III	60	(1)
IV	61	(1)
V	62	(1)
VI	63	(1)
VII	64	(1)
VIII	65	(1)
IX	66	(1)
X	67	(1)
XI	68	(1)
XII	69	(1)
XIV	70	(1)
XV	71	(1)
XVI	72	(1)
XVII	73	(1)
XVIII	74	(1)
XIX	75	(2)
XX	77	(1)
XXI	78	(2)
XXII	80	(1)
XXIII	81	(1)
XXIV	82	(1)
XXV	83	(1)
XXVI	84	(1)
Southward	85	(64)
Southward	87	(10)
The Table	89	(2)
Somewhere Else	91	(2)
You Are	93	(1)
Southward	94	(2)
Flights	96	(1)
The Poems of Jose Galvan	97	(10)
Southern Latitudes	99	(10)
Nightingales Again	100	(2)
I, Too, Write Stories	102	(2)
Other Writing	104	(1)
Kingdoms	105	(2)
The End	107	(4)
Cherries	109	(2)
The Poems of Julio Greco	111	(38)
Truths	113	(4)
Women	117	(2)
On Poetry	119	(2)
They Say	121	(2)
Literatures	123	(2)
Poetry Forever	125	(2)
Sayings	127	(2)
Poetry Once More	129	(2)
Aunt Fran's Bunuelos	131	(2)
Certain Flights	133	(3)
Dampnesses	136	(2)
Pharmacies	138	(3)
Tides	141	(2)
An Exhibition of a Few Painting	143	(3)
The Beauty of All Creation	146	(3)
Com/positions	149	(2)
Exergue	151	(1)
The Cradle	152	(2)
Psalm	154	(1)
What Will Come to Pass	155	(1)
The Expulsed	156	(1)
The Prisoner	157	(1)
Song	158	(1)
The Battle	159	(1)
In Prison	160	(1)
That	161	(8)
Rain	163	(1)
Children	164	(2)
Handkerchiefs	166	(1)
The Deluded	167	(2)
LETTER TO MY MOTHER	169	(12)
Epilogue: An Open Letter to My Grandson or Granddaughter	181	(4)
Appendix A: A Chronology of Argentina's Dirty War	185	(4)
Appendix B: Juan Gelman's Life and Works	189