Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology (Texas Pan American Series)

The preface is well-written; the text is a very nice anthology of 20th century Latin American poets. It seems the anthology was looked at by many peers who contributed advice to its content and organization. What is very good: the English translations are on the right side of each page; the original poem in Spanish is on the left side. The translations are quite good. English-only speakers will find the poetry a bit challenging because there is so much that went on behind the poem: the political and social issues of the times, swooping trends of European poetry meeting local issues, and still simmering feelings about colonialism and imperialism. The anthology is quite reasonably priced. It would be good for any college level class. Stephen Tapscott is a poet at MIT; he is published and he has some depth. All around, this is an excellent choice for anyone wanting to finally read the great ones of the 20th century coming out of Latin America.

This anthology does a great job of presenting Latin American poetry from the twentieth century. It is ideal as a jumping board to a more detailed study of these poets. However, this anthology gets a low rating for its poor translations. The poems I have studied carefully are all marred by bad translations. Translators make grievous errors in choosing the synonyms, as well as missing the overall context of the poems.Here are a few examples. (1) from the poem Deseos by Carlos Pellicer: pasare con mis ruidos de vidrio tornasol, translated as 'move like a great noisy sunflower made of glass' (2) from the poem Dibujo de la mujer que llega (translated as 'Sketch of a Frontier Woman') by Claudia Lars: The imagery that runs through the poem is that of Virgin Mary, though not explicitly spelled out. The translator completely misses this point and therefore uses words that do not reflect the grandeur of the original. (3) from A la Poesia by Carlos Pellicer: 'reflejo de cien espejos, tu cuerpo' is translated as 'Like a hundred mirrors I reflect your body.These are just a few examples. Each poem is riddled with so many of these errors that bilingual readers would be very annoyed reading this collection.

I am not a huge fan of poetry, but I am a huge fan of Latin America and have been learning Spanish for the past several years. I use this book to compare the original to the translation (which are conveniently side by side on the same page) and it's interesting having some insight into what is lost in translation. It's also good for expanding vocabulary and getting a grasp of how to communicate more effectively in Spanish. As for a general poetry volume it's fairly comprehensive and features a lot of famous works; Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, Juan Luis Borges, Ramon Dario, Che Guevara. It also has brief, informative biography info that is helpful and gives a good context for understanding the lives and works of the artists. Useful as a learning tool, comprehensive as a volume. A good buy.

This book introduced me to a number of different poets and their work. I'll agree that there are poor translations in this, but unfortunately that is the case with too many language translations and isn't necessary the fault of this particular author or assemblage of poems- though they make no attempt to correct such. It is an interesting book just for that reason and if you want to try your hand at translating poetry, not too tough to beat most of the translations in this book using some logic and a couple internet translators and you will undoubtedly learn more Spanish by doing so!

This book is not for the faint-hearted. It might be a text in a poetry or Latin American literature course, and it will be a good text. It covers a wide range of voices of the 20th century, in the original and decent translations. It would also be a good overview for someone truly interested in modern poetry and the trends that occurred over that century. I believe it could have included other more recent writers, but any such anthology is limited in scope bu its editor. The introductions to each poet are also informative.

front 2 pages had big what looked like food stains but body of poetry in good shape

It was just like the description said! it looked new, love love love love love it! It helped for my class

I love the selection of poems.