The poems of Octavio Paz

As Weinberger, long a translator of Mexican Nobel laureate Paz, acknowledges in a prefatory note to this comprehensive, dual-language retrospective, any act of translation remains forever incomplete. This is nowhere clearer, perhaps, than in this generous volume that uniquely covers Paz's full evolution as an artist, from early, timid attempts to the prose-like passages of his postwar years to his accomplished, playful later pieces. Weinberger, along with a few poet-translators, such as Elizabeth Bishop, Denise Levertov, and Muriel Rukeyser, wrestles with the reflexive forms of alliterative Spanish, the informal second-person pronoun, which has no real analog in English, and the tricky accentual stresses and shades of emphasis found in Spanish. Weinberger includes poems never before translated into English, a fresh and concise biography of Paz, and a wealth of poems written all over the world, from Delhi to Paris to Tokyo and beyond, a representative selection which attests to Paz's genuine cosmopolitanism. An incomparable entree into a versatile and globally influential poet's work.--Baez, Diego Copyright 2010 Booklist

Paz (1914-1998), who won the Nobel Prize in 1990, dominated Mexican letters during the last decades of his life; his influence was global, and his powers of invention beyond dispute. This ambitious bilingual selection (far from complete, despite the title) is the first to span his career. Readers new to Paz will notice consistencies-self-consciousness about words and meanings, as "Syllables/ ripen in the mind,/ flower in the mouth"; erotic passion; reliance on common nouns (sun, flame, leaves); and a sense of poetic authority-"listen to me as one listens to the rain." And yet the same readers may marvel at Paz's variety: haiku-like miniatures; the tempestuous book-length poem "Sunstone"; fast-moving prose poems; abstract odes; extended descriptions of places in Mexico, India, Afghanistan, and Japan; flourishing responses to visual art; even a long and passionate poem ("Blanco") that divides itself in two parallel columns, perhaps corresponding to male and female. The essayist Weinberger translated Paz, with Paz's approval, for decades; he has revised some versions to fit Paz's revisions, included a few by other hands, and supplied careful explanatory notes. The result is that rarity, an authoritative translation that should get sustained U.S. attention, and that often sounds right read aloud. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.