Full Description
Luis García Montero (Granada, 1958) is one of the most read and influential Spanish writers today. He is an essayist, fiction writer, journalist, professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Granada, and, principally, a poet. He has received numerous important honors, like the National Poetry Prize (1994) and the National Critic's Prize (2003), both in Spain, and the Poets of the Latin World Prize (2010), in Mexico. He has published eleven books of poetry, represented in The World So Often, his first anthology in English.
Luis García Montero's poetry has commonly been considered - even by the author himself - as realist, yet this is a misinterpretation. His poetic subject doesn't try to trap the reader in an illusory world offered up as natural, but rather to break with the automatic perception of things and facts, and so avoid catharsis. What's crucial here is the use of a language that does not try to be transparent, a simple instrument of communication, and that risks its neck to be noticed. It's a language that is both reflection and matter, and thus, has the agency to change things, the capacity to transform. Moreover, this language is not limited to the lyrical tradition, it doesn't discriminate against words in any way, it becomes democratized. By combining prosaism and tropological density, it searches for a discourse with a greater power of representation and participation. In short, García Montero's work achieves a balance between sentimental rigor and intellectual outpouring, rejects solipsism, and goes deeper into dialogical poetry.
Contents
Luis García Montero, the Poetry of Experience and Something More
FROM TRISTIA
The Cars
Homage
The Scene of the Crime
FROM FOREIGN GARDEN
To Name Us (1941)
Like Each Morning
To Federico, with Some Violets
FROM COMPLICIT JOURNAL
Invitation
First Book
Second Book
Invitation to Return
FROM THE FLOWERS OF COLD
Crossed-Out Song
Bitter Song
Song with No One
Song of Mist
Evicted Song
Night Song
Verlaine Song
Furniture Store
Loose Adaptation of Immortality
Nocturne
FROM SEPARATE ROOMS
The Traveler's Reasons
The Mirrors
First Day of Vacation
The World So Often
The Insomnia of Jovellanos
FROM COMPLETELY FRIDAY
Monday Man with a Secret
Confessions
August's City
Doubtful Urban Geography
Tuesday and Literature
Saturday Night Crime
Impossible Song
The City
The Car
Immortality
The Night
The Past
Poetry
Politics
Old Age
FROM INNER LIFE OF THE SNAKE (2003)
On Turning Forty
Corner 40 Song
Sun Song
Waiting Song
2001 Song
Pornographic Song
New Year's Eve (1940, 1970, 2000)
FROM EYESTRAIN
Hometown
One Language
First Verses
New York
The Professor
Children
Market Memories
Anniversary (2004)
Memory of Happiness (A Beach in Rota)
My Future and Heraclitus
Prints
Translator Notes
