The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz: 1957-1987

How do I measure the value of a book? For someone like me that is like asking how do you measure the value of Love!First of all I have been a huge fan of Spanish Language poets, especially Neruda, Vallejo and Lorca for years, and cannot believe that I have missed Paz along the way. The name was familiar but had not read his work. Can't even recall now how I came across him recently, read a few things I found online and it struck a chord with me immediately. And when I began to research his books this one stood out. In short, it is far better than I expected. The work of Paz resonates so deeply with me and I suppose as a writer one of the ways I do "measure" the value of a book is when it inspires me to write, and this book has given me much inspiration. I always get bilingual editions- I read Spanish, French and Italian now to a lesser degree, which is a bit strange because I am Italian but only started to learn to language a couple of years ago. I lived in Mexico for a year and spoke it as often as I could, but I haven't done so in many years so I do not speak it very well anymore, but read it fairly well, the same with French. There are several French writers, poets in particular, that equally move me, in one way or another, and most are from the early 20th Century, although I have come across a couple who are still writing today. But I suppose with "Spanish" poets, wherever they are from, I am moved in a much different way. It comes down to levels of passion in the art that Lorca called "duende". I can't put this tome down. In a short time, Paz has become one of my favorite poets. And this book has become a cherished addition to my library. I have been writing poetry for about 45 years; I grew up with the Beats, and those poets who were their influences and poets who they influenced of my generation. Over the years I have been drawn more to French and Spanish writers mostly of the early 20th century, although Paz wrote a bit later. I am intrigued with Paz's style and imagery. Like Lorca he can 'astonish' with just a few lines of verse. The way in which he strings words, phrases together is magical. His passion hit me in such a deep place. I found him in a time of my life when I needed to. This has usually been the case. I have published two novels and a collection of selected poetry that spans 40+ years of my life. I believe that great writers are born, most of the real greats seem like they have existed on some other plane. And I know how important great writers have been to me as both a read and a writer. Several of my favorite Spanish language writers truly capture the essence and nuance of "darkness and light", and Paz is one of the best. It is hard for me to compare, for example, to Neruda or Lorca because I have been reading them for so long, but it is very rare for any poet to totally engage me so quickly. This collection is excellent, the translations are very good, an art in itself. I highly recommend this book to any one who already knows of Paz, and to anyone that appreciates truly great writing.

I love this book! It is in great condition and I am happy with the purchase!

In the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus, encountering a blind man, spits on the ground and presses the clay to the man’s eyes; the man, as the King James Version puts it, “came seeing.” In his best work the Mexican poet Octavio Paz pulls off a very similar feat. As with many of the Central and South American poets, he is of the earth, earthy; he crowds his poems with vegetation and skies and landscapes—“gilded mountains of mandarins and sloes”—and conversations and sights of the countries he’s traveled. Vigilant streetlamps, dirty snow, houses and cars asleep, the insomnia of a lamp, the oak tree that talks to itself, the wind and its knives, the illegible writing of the constellations.When the poems don’t quite come off, the verses can seem both wandering and overpacked; like Whitman, he can mistake accumulation for transcendence. But far more often the imaginative structure is in place and that other source—“the great murmur that comes from the depths of time”—wells up. He restores our sight—and scent and sound and taste and touch—all with the spirit intact, incarnate. The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz 1957-1987 (New Directions, 1990) begins with a bravura and exalting 584-line poem “Piedra de Sol” (“Sunstone”) based on the Aztec calendar (talk about staking your claim). Paz’s family was of mixed indigenous Mexican and Spanish roots; his family was political and educated, he grew up around books, and was a busy and productive writer, both in prose and verse, all his life. This is a good, simple frame for his work—he was widely read in European literature, had friendships and shared his craft with writers and painters and traveled extensively (India, once encountered, was a huge presence in his work), all of which may account for that comfortable sophistication that is part of Paz’s voice; it may help explain why he could encounter so huge and ancient a culture as that of India and then explore and incorporate it rather than simply being overwhelmed by it. And those indigenous family roots may explain how all that travel and education never erased the chthonic depth, the mystery—Blake would have called them “emanations”—in his verse. Yeats said of his own work, and that of Synge and Lady Gregory, that it got its strength from contact with the Irish soil; Paz is Antaean, powerful, in the same way. People have called “Sunstone” surreal, and in the great late poem “This and This and This” he gives a celebratory dream vision of what surrealism is, but his work seldom has the tinny flash of much European surrealism. Shock the bourgeois? He’s got better, deeper things to do. Like Frank Sewell’s recent selection of Sean O’Riordain, the Collected Poems of Octavio Paz incorporates translations by a raft of marvelous poets—Elizabeth Bishop, Paul Blackburn, Denise Levertov, Charles Tomlinson—but the large part of the work is done by the editor, Eliot Weinberger, and it’s hard to imagine how it could have been done better. I have no idea where the line of credit shifts—if Paz is particularly amenable to translation or if Weinberger is just a banger of a translator—but I don’t remember a page of this book that read like translation English. Even with my less-than-primitive Spanish, I was struck time and time again not just by the grace of the Weinberger’s choices in translation, but by the beauty, naked and direct, it seemed, of the poems. April Bernard called David Ferry’s recent translation of the Aeneid not so much a translation as a new iteration of the tale, and maybe that’s what happens here. Paz shows the wingspan, the confidence, the reach and grasp, the human-heartedness, and over and over and over again the beauty and vision that puts his poetry with the very best of our century, and who knows how far past. “And I / ask you for nothing, nothing / that comes from the other world: / only / the light on the sea, / the barefoot light on the sleeping land and sea.” “The pear has blossomed / and in its shade the circle of men / drink a liquor distilled from the sun.” Here’s mud in your eye.From Glenn's Book Notes

Spectacular.

This is a fantastic book of poems. The best thing about it is that the poems are in English and Spanish. Beautiful.

Nobel Prize Winner Octavio Paz is one of the greatest masters of Poetry and one of the greatest Latin writers of the 20th century. Here is a collection of great works beginning with his amazing long poem Sunstone. Readers and writers need to add this book to their collection of poetry.

Exquisite

I bought this book after reading an excerpt of one of Paz's poems at a camp. I didn't know what poem it was from, so I bought the book and scoured it until I found the poem. It was Brotherhood. The poetry is beautiful and moving. It is the type of poetry you can read and enjoy no matter if you understand what it is saying, the writing is that beautiful

I am ashamed to admit that it was the most recent work by Mererid Hopwood that made me turn for the first time, to the work of this wonderful poet and Nobel Prize winner. One literary figure described his work as entering the space between language and silence.It did/does more than that for me ,even when read in translation.Paz has/had in spades ,the power to convey meanings full of imagery ,ideas and a palate of emotions.The silence in my description is one of awe.

Wonderful. And how encouraging to see his anti-communist poems. A bold and original spirit.

Producto que me fascina. Espero poder comprarlo de nuevo muy pronto como regalo en esa ocasión.Me llegó muy pronto.Quedé muy satisfecho.