fungus skull eye wing: Selected Poems of Alfonso D'Aquino

Alfonso D’Aquino, Forrest Gander, trans.

fungus skull eye wing is a book of shifting subjectivity and liquid perspective, of surrealist tradition and Butoh-like gestures. The text flirts with the margins of the “rational,” perception, and the subjective mind. The speaker morphs into what he observes; speech comes alive while a plant becomes speech. Impeccably translated from Spanish by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Forrest Gander in a bilingual edition.

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ISBN: 9781556594472

Format: Paperback

Acanthus (b / shadow)

The statue doesn’t

but its shadow sifts

throughout the day

making a circle

 

It traces its own way

across the stones

fingering forward

along a blind edge

 

The light slanting

over its shoulder

tints the branches

with a reddish patina

 

Its hand points out

flowers and ivy

and new leaves

graze on the shadow

 

Over stones a restless

flame quivers

the afternoon transparentizes

the dream of flesh

 

The hand beckons

making dark signs

against the high wall

igneous clusters

 

The statue doesn’t

but its shadow shifts

throughout the day

and returns a stranger

About the Author

Alfonso D’Aquino was raised by his grandmother in an old house attached to a colonial convent in Coyoacán, Mexico. Books were his best friends from an early age. Often solitary, he spent many afternoons at a small aquarium in the nearby town of San Ángel, fascinated then (as now) by the nonhuman world. D’Aquino makes his living as an editor, is the author and editor of several books for children, and teaches a “Poetry and Silence” workshop that, over ten …

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About the Translator

Forrest Gander was born in the Mojave Desert and grew up in Virginia. He is a writer and translator with degrees in geology and English literature. Among his recent books are Be With, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize, and Core Samples from the World, a Pulitzer and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. His translations include Then Come Back: The Lost Neruda; Fungus Skull Eye Wing: Selected Poems of Alfonso D’Aquino; and Pinholes in the Night: Essential Poems from …

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