#uncollected poems 1962 1972

[derangedrhythms]

And you didn’t want to recognize me when I told you of the thing in me that was you.

Alejandra Pizarnik, Extracting the Stone of Madness: Poems 1962–1972; Uncollected Poems (1962–1972) from ‘In Honor of a Loss’, tr. Yvette Siegert

[89rooms]

All my life waits for you.

Alejandra Pizarnik - 'Extracting the Stone of Madness: Poems 1962–1972; Uncollected Poems (1962–1972),' Untitled, tr: Yvette Siegert

[acronychalwitch]

Is there no way out of the mind?

I do nothing but search and not find. That's how I waste my nights.

-Sylvia Plath, Apprehensions // Alejandra Pizarnik, from "01 May 1972" of Uncollected Poems (1962-1972)

[theoptia]

If I’m anything, I’m violence.

Alejandra Pizarnik, from Uncollected Poems (1962-1972); “Of Silence”

[orchard-bliss]

Poem, this is night. Have you met the night?

—Alejandra Pizarnik: From 'Uncollected Poems (1962–1972); [untitled].

[lcvesque]

𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐀.  ╱  geneviève durand kerr

margaret atwood, you are happy  // wind water (raoul ruiz, 1995) // walt whitman, “as time draws nigh”, leaves of grass  //ghismonda with the heart of guiscardo detail, (1650) by bernardino mei   // susan sontag, from as consciousness is harnessed to flesh // last night in soho  // alejandra pizarnik, from uncollected poems (1962-1972); “of silence”

[heteroglossia]

From a young age, [Alejandra Pizarnik] discovered a deep affinity with poets who, as she would later write, exemplified Hölderlin’s claim that “poetry is a dangerous game,” sacrificing everything in order to “annul the distance society imposes between poetry and life.” She was particularly drawn to “the suffering of Baudelaire, the suicide of Nerval, the premature silence of Rimbaud, the mysterious and fleeting presence of Lautréamont,” and, perhaps most importantly, to the “unparalleled intensity” of Artaud’s “physical and moral suffering."

Jerome Rothenberg, from Alejandra Pizarnik: Uncollected Poems 1962-1972, in Jacket2

[grolierpoetry]

Ten Poetry Books to Read Now

1. Extracting the Stone of Madness By Alejandra Pizarnik translated from the Spanish by Yvette Sigert

This book  contains the poems of Alejandra Pizarnik from 1962-1972.

The “small prose poems” in the section of uncollected poems have a sadness and a profound sense of aliveness.

“The sun closed,the sense of the sun closed, and the sense of closing lit it up”

Buy here

2. evolution by Eileen Myles

There are some pockets of rare beauty in this new book by one of our most irreverent poets. This is a gem of a book perfect for the 21st century.

“Our happiness was when the lights were out

the whole city  in darkness”

Buy Here

 3. Refuse by Julian Randall Refuse was the winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize.

Randall’s poetry is like a breath of fresh air. Part history, part present the book is alive and full of the “truth’ of the strangeness that is America in 2018.

“I am a burden in every mouth  my name a minefield people forget what I am exactly   but I end in blood”

Buy Here

4. We Fall Like Children by Xhevdet Bajraj Translations from Albanian and Spanish by Ani Gjika and Alice Whitmore

This book is full of flowers that bloom in spite of the conditions that they “the souls and angels” in the book find themselves in. War and exile are the deep concerns of this writer who lives in Mexico He and his family were deported from Kosovo in May of 1999.

“Flowers  when they are born cry  like babies”

Buy Here

5. Eye Level  by Jenny Xie

Winner of the Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets. A lovely book of poems infused with moments of stillness, rain water and aliveness.

“Rainwater mars the tin roofs,  melts a sticky bun left in the alley. it worries down the final tips of daylight.

                            How long will it be like this?

Water growing out of water.”

Buy Here

6. First Mountain by Zhang Er

An elegant book of poems that bring the reader into many different worlds. The world of rural China, of grief and dreams.

“At the sky’s edge at the lip of the sea the distance between water and water. The Yangtze and the Hudson flow together, together therefore flows all distances”

Buy Here

7. The January Children by Safia Elhillo

Safia Elhillo knows how to tell a story in poetic form. This book is a tender and sometimes personal look at the ramifications of displacement.

“& what is a country but the drawing of a line          i draw thick black lines around my eyes& they are a country”...

Buy Here

8. In the Still of the night By Dara Wier

A beautiful book of longing and loss by an award winning American poet.  There is a surreal tinge to the writing of Dara Wier. 

“Their must be a name somewhere  For what’s not there”

Buy Here

9. Be With By Forrest Gander To be with, to lose to grieve, to survive moment by moment, to live and  therefore suffer and to allow grace to come.  A new book by an award winning poet.

Buy Here

10.  Breathturn

by Paul Celan translated by Pierre Joris

A book to read slowly. Celan breathtaking writing comes through in this beautiful translation by Pierre Joris.

Buy Here

[yuujaee]

"I do nothing but search and not find. That's how I waste my nights."

- Alejandra Pizarnik, from "01 may 1972", of uncollected poems (1962-1972), selected poems, transl. By cecilia Rossi (Waterloo press, 2010)

[booksfornamjoon]

Day 8

Alejandra Pizarnik -  Uncollected Poems (1962–1972)

[Night, the poem]

«If you find your true voice, bring it to the land of the dead. There is kindness in the ashes. And terror in non-identity. A little girl lost in a ruined house, this fortress of my poems.

I write with the blind malice of children pelting a madwoman, like a crow, with stones. No—I don’t write: I open a breach in the dusk so the dead can send messages through.

What is this job of writing? To steer by mirror-light in darkness. To imagine a place known only to me. To sing of distances, to hear the living notes of painted birds on Christmas trees.

My nakedness bathed you in light. You pressed against my body to drive away the great black frost of night.

My words demand the silence of a wasteland.

Some of them have hands that grip my heart the moment they’re written. Some words are doomed like lilacs in a storm. And some are like the precious dead—even if I still prefer to all of them the words for the doll of a sad little girl».                                  

[adrasteiax]

If you find your true voice, bring it to the land of the dead. There is kindness in the ashes. [...] A little girl lost in a ruined house, this fortress of my poems.

Alejandra Pizarnik, from Night, The Poem in “Uncollected Poems (1962–1972)” [translated by Cole Heinowitz]

[derangedrhythms]

All night long the dead one dreams in me. 

Alejandra Pizarnik, Selected Poems; Uncollected Poems (1962 –1972) from ‘The Song for the Dead’, tr. Cecilia Rossi

[openlyandfreely]

Oh my god these poems.

[theoptia]

Night blindly mine.

Alejandra Pizarnik, from Uncollected Poems (1962-1972); “Phantom Memories”

[orchard-bliss]

The poem is space and it scars.

—Alejandra Pizarnik: From 'Uncollected Poems (1962–1972); […] On Silence.

[almoststardust]

No one paints in green. Everything is orange. If I am anything, I’m cruelty.

Alejandra Pizarnik: From 'Uncollected Poems (1962–1972)'