"City Moon" / "Luna urbana"
from Francisco Aragón's
Puerta del Sol

Francisco Aragón:

A native of San Francisco and long-time resident of Spain, Francisco Aragón has published work in numerous anthologies, including Inventions of Farewell: A Book of Elegies (W. W. Norton), Under the Fifth Sun: Latino Literature from California (Heyday Books), American Diaspora: Poetry of Displacement (University of Iowa Press), How to Be This Man (Swan Scythe Press), and Bend, Don't Shatter (Soft Skull Press). He is the author of three limited-edition chapbooks, most recently, Tertulia (BOOKlyn). His poems and translations have appeared in various print and web publications, including Chain, Chelsea, Crab Orchard Review, Electronic Poetry Review, Jacket, Puerto del Sol, and ZYZZYVA. His honors include an Academy of American Poets Prize and an AWP Intro Journals Project Award. His work as a translator includes six books, among them From the Other Side of Night: New and Selected Poems (University of Arizona Press) and Sonnets to Madness and Other Misfortunes (Creative Arts Book Company), both by Francisco X. Alarcón. He is the founding editor and publisher of Momotombo Press, which promotes emerging Latino writers and is housed at the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame, where he is a Visiting Fellow. He currently resides in Elkhart, Indiana.

Francisco Aragón, nativo de California, residío en Madrid entre 1989 y 1998. Su obra se ha publicado en varias antologías, entre ellas Inventions of Farewell: A Book of Elegies (W. W. Norton), Under the Fifth Sun: Latino Literature from California (Heyday Books), American Diaspora: Poetry of Displacement (University of Iowa Press), How to Be This Man (Swan Scythe Press) y Bend, Don't Shatter (Soft Skull Press). También ha publicado tres poemarios en ediciones limitadas, el más reciente, Tertulia (BOOKlyn). Sus poemas y traducciones de Federico García Lorca y Gerardo Diego se han publicado en revistas literarias estadounidenses tales como Chain, Chelsea, Crab Orchard Review, Electronic Poetry Review, Jacket, Puerto del Sol y ZYZZYVA. Sus honores incluyen un premio del Academy of American Poets. Como traductor, ha publicado varios poemarios, entre ellos Del otro lado de la noche (University of Arizona Press) y Sonetos a la locura y otras penas (Creative Arts Book Company), ambos del poeta Francisco X. Alarcón. Es fundador y editor de Momotombo Press, que promueve la obra literaria de jovenes escritores hispanos y cuyo hogar es el Institute for Latino Studies en la Universidad de Notre Dame, donde trabaja. Reside en Elkhart, Indiana. )

About Puerta del Sol:

Francisco Aragón extends the map of Latino poetry in this bilingual collection. Taking its title from the central plaza in Madrid, it chronicles an overseas journey both public and private. Life in the capital – taking in jazz at a café after dark, navigating the underground landscapes of the Metro to and from work – is interwoven with the more interior realms of loss in poems that mourn a parent, retrace the steps of a late mentor, or express the collective grief born of terrorism. The work, in essence, inhabits a seldom explored bicultural space: for Aragón the author is also Aragón the translator, shaping with his own hand Spanish versions of all these poems, thereby embodying the years he shuttled between his native California and his adopted Spain.

"Aragón's Nicaraguan-American voice contrasts the 'packed, as always,' cafés and plazas of Madrid with San Francisco's joggers and BART riders. What transpires is simply dazzling..."
— Robert Vasquez

"These eloquent poems of mourning and memory move deftly, as in a beautiful grave sarabande, between Spain and San Francisco, past and present, enriched by what Francisco Aragón justly calls the 'bilingual mirror' of his 'corazón.' Mono- as well as bilingual readers will welcome them with admiration and pleasure."
— Sandra M. Gilbert

"Francisco Aragón writes poetry that speaks with a quiet voice yet is rich with detail. But he also acknowledges the awkwardness of the life we all lead where, for example, the body starts unexpectedly to sweat. That he does not allow that awkwardness to move into the style itself speaks all the more for his skill."
— Thom Gunn

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