"Los amantes de Tlatelolco"
("The Lovers of Tlatelolco")
by Elsa Cross
translated by Sheena Sood
from
Connecting Lines: New Poetry from Mexico

Elsa Cross:

Elsa Cross was born in Mexico City in 1946. She is author of twenty books of poetry including Espejo al sol, which gathers her books published between 1964 and 1981; Espirales, which features selected poems published from 1965 to 1999; and, most recently, Ultramar, odas and El vino de las cosas. Among other awards, she has received the Premio Nacional de Poesía Aguascalientes and the Premio Internacional de Poesía Jaime Sabines. She has a doctorate in philosophy and teaches at Mexico's National University, UNAM.

About Connecting Lines:
New Poetry from Mexico:

Connecting Lines introduces readers to the best of contemporary Mexican poetry through definitive translations by leading writers and scholars. Whether read for personal pleasure or classroom study, this comprehensive bilingual anthology is an essential volume for poetry lovers and grants new insight into Mexican culture. Poetry lovers may wish to purchase the companion volume, Líneas conectadas: nueva poesía de los Estados Unidos, which introduces readers to the best of contemporary American poetry.

“Connecting Lines and Líneas conectadas wipe out borders and tear down dividing walls to show, in two volumes constituting a single work, the new poetry in the United States and Mexico: two parallel and separate experiences that come together in the infinity of the possible. There are no dogmas or schools; the only theme is the whole world in its uncertain diversity. What unites all these poets is their being so different and giving us unusual and unrepeatable visions of what it means to be alive in this new world we never expected to see.”
— José Emilio Pacheco

“Andre Gide used to maintain that every writer owed it to his own language to translate at least one foreign writer ‘to whom his talents and temperament are suited.’ He would have celebrated these two adventurous volumes, which bring together two clusters of poets, to cross languages and recreate one another through the mysterious alchemy of translation. The two books bring to the reader something of the translator’s experience, the experience of realizing just what Pablo Neruda caught in these two indelible lines:

     in the net it’s not just the strings that count
     but also the air that escapes through the meshes.”

— Alastair Reid

“The accessibility to this new Mexican poetry, in Spanish as well as in English, in one place is unmatched anywhere.... Recommended for public and academic libraries.”
— Library Journal

Search Poetry Daily / Amazon.com for other books: