The Whole Island

Six Decades of Cuban Poetry, A Bilingual Anthology

Mark Weiss (Editor)

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ISBN: 9780520944534

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Cuba's cultural influence throughout the Western Hemisphere, and especially in the United States, has been disproportionally large for so small a country. This landmark volume is the first comprehensive overview of poetry written over the past sixty years. Presented in a beautiful Spanish-English en face edition, The Whole Island makes available the astonishing achievement of a wide range of Cuban poets, including such well-known figures as Nicolás Guillén, José Lezama Lima, and Nancy Morejón, but also poets widely read in Spanish who remain almost unknown to the English-speaking world—among them Fina García Marruz, José Kozer, Raúl Hernández Novás, and Ángel Escobar—and poets born since the Revolution, like Rogelio Saunders, Omar Pérez, Alessandra Molina, and Javier Marimón. The translations, almost all of them new, convey the intensity and beauty of the accompanying Spanish originals. With their work deeply rooted in Cuban culture, many of these poets—both on and off the island—have been at the center of the political and social changes of this tempestuous period. The poems offered here constitute an essential source for understanding the literature and culture of Cuba, its diaspora, and the Caribbean at large, and provide an unparalleled perspective on what it means to be Cuban.

Mark Weiss is a poet, translator, publisher, and editor. His publications include six books of poetry; as coeditor, Across the Line/Al otro lado: The Poetry of Baja California; and as translator, Stet: Selected Poems of José Kozer.

“Effectively broaden[s] the sense of poetic terrain outside the United States and also create[s] a superb collection of foreign poems in English. There is nothing else like it.”—The Nation

“This massive bilingual volume is the first comprehensive overview of Cuban poetry written over the past 60 years. Mark Weiss has done an outstanding job of gathering translations. . . It is clear that Cuban poetry is a crucial component of North American Literature. Reading selections from this enormous volume is an immersion in fine poetry and translation and a reminder of how Cuba remains a vital center of artistic expression.”—Bloomsbury Review

“Weiss delicately gathers six decades of Cuban poetry in this bilingual anthology. This literary feat, an act of opposition to censorship, inevitably presents the works of poets who have had to fight for their independence. . . . This is a prized collection of Cuban poetry. Recommended for all libraries and bookstores.”—Library Journal

“This impressive, bilingual anthology is the first comprehensive overview of the Cuban poetic tradition. . . . A useful introduction to little-known riches.”—Latin America Foresight / Foreword Magazine

“This bilingual anthology offers an excellent introduction to modern Cuban poetry.”—Review: Lit & Arts Of Americas

“Magnificent anthology.”—Chris Andrews Times Literary Supplement (TLS)

“This unique anthology of Cuban poetry in the modern period . . . is invaluable for both its scope and its concern for political and literary context. . . . Highly recommended.”—Choice

“A startling triumph. . . . A pipeline for queer Cuban voices, dozens of them.”—Queer New York

“[This anthology] demonstrates the extent to which translation can generate exciting innovations in poetic techniques and form.”—Pleiades

“Weiss wisely avoids superimposing a political structure on his collection -- an approach supporting an overall impression that each poet find his/her best self in the work itself.”—Ron Slate On The Seawall

“Reading this book, you discover a new world of poetry. What could be more exciting than that?”—Poetry Foundation/ Harriet

LA CASA DEL PAN

“Entra en la nave blanca: mira la mesa donde está la harina-la harina blanca.

“Fuera del pueblo, apenas tuerce el camino a la intemperie, allí está la casa del pan-la nave blanca.

“Donde un negro de sonrisa vaga saca del horno las palas con el pan crujiente. Saca del horno inmenso, quieto, las palas con el pan crujiente.

“¿Desde cuándo estás tú aquí-se le pregunta-, desde cuándo estás entre la harina?

“Responde con veloces zumbas: desde las ceremonias y las máscaras, desde el velamen y las fugas, desde las candelillas y las máquinas, desde los circos y las flautas.

“Desde que se encendió el fuego en el horno.”

THE HOUSE OF BREAD

“Enter the white shop: see the table covered with flour-white flour.

“Outside the town, the path barely twists towards the open air, and there it is, the house of bread-the white shop.

“Where a black with a distant smile removes from the oven palettes of crusty bread. He removes the palettes of crusty bread from the enormous, quiet oven.

“How long have you been here?” you ask him, “how long have you spent with flour?”

“He answers with ready jokes: since ceremonies and masks, since sails and escapes, since tobacco bugs and machines, since circuses and flutes.

“Since they lit the fire in the oven.”

Eliseo Diego

“The Whole Island is a masterwork of cartography: a map of what is, for English-language readers, an almost entirely unexplored territory, full of poets—at home or in the diaspora—whom we ought to know.”—Eliot Weinberger

“An uplifting anthology of Cuban poetry that is an excellent and timely resource for scholars and general readers alike. A worthy contribution to the canon.”—Oscar Hijuelos, Pulitzer Prize Winner

The Whole Island

Six Decades of Cuban Poetry, A Bilingual Anthology

Mark Weiss (Editor)

READ AN EXCERPT

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