From Publishers Weekly
New Directions continues its public service to literature with this lively introduction to contemporary Mexican poet-diplomat Homero Aridjis. Born in 1940 of Mexican-Greek ancestry, Aridjis begins this book as a somewhat sentimental surrealist, in poems that caught the attention of American poets from Philip Lamantia to W.S. Merwin and Kenneth Rexroth. His poetry eventually moves from lyrical declarations, such as "Knotted up, your cry of silence tells me nothing moss is also growing on my lips " to a more coherent if no less mystical succession of images: "he lifted up the fugitive water, held out the transparent stream, and saw the world on the other side." In between these two phases, translated here by various hands including the above poets and editor McWhirter, Aridjis has an unfortunate brush with the same translatorese that has made it difficult for readers of English to understand the verse of Octavio Paz (as rendered by Eliot Weinberger): the self-conscious word choices of "must I end up dozing to Bach like the gent who snoozes at the concert his day weary with schedules and bills his night exhausted at a show?" from "Questions" are typical. Aridjis's poems have, since the '90s, shown an almost American tendency to deliver a satisfying punch line or irony, a tendency he mediates with a curiously elegant sense of magic: "Waking today I found my shoes at the foot of the bed. Dogs tied by their laces so they won't get separated one from the other. What if, forgetting me, they make off in dreams for my childhood town and never come back?" Readers will get hold of the dreams, here with facing-page Spanish, but return repeatedly. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Seamus Heaney
Homero Aridjis's poems open a door into the light.

The Ecologist, Dick Russel, March 2002
Now, for the first time, a collection of Aridjis's stunning poetry ranging over four decades.

Publishers Weekly, 18 March 2002
A lively introduction to contemporary Mexican poet-diplomat Aridjis.

The Texas Observer, Dave Oliphant, 17 January 2003
In some ways not even the poetry of Octavio Paz can compare with the production of Aridjis.

Michigan Quarterly Review, Ilan Stavans, Spring 2003
A weighty sampler of a high-caliber poet with an encyclopedic scope and artistic gravitas.

Cold Mountain Review, Brian Glaser, Spring 2003
[Aridjis'] selected poems leave a stunning record of images caught between the traumas and the paradises of the past.

Oyster Boy Review, Jeffery Beam, Fall 2003
To read Aridjis...is to recognize poetry's ability to vibrantly evoke the timeless dawning of consciousness and Nature's eternal newness.

Book Description
For the first time, a comprehensive Selected Poems in a bilingual edition, by Mexico's greatest living poet. Eyes to See Otherwise is the first extensive selection of poems by leading Mexican poet Homero Aridjis to appear in English. The scope and quality of the translations, by some of America's finest poets, mark the centrality of his work on the map of modern poetry. Aridjis's sources range from Nahuatl chants and Huichol initiation songs to San Juan de la Cruz and the 16th-century Spanish poet Luis de Góngora y Argote. He is, in the words of translator George McWhirter, "a troubadour of love for lost environments, a voice in the wilderness of Mexico City and Mexico." Included in this selection are poems by Aridjis evoking his own life, present and past, his memories always sticking close to his birthplace Contepec, where, on Altamirano Hill, the Monarch butterflies arrive each year. This long awaited Selected Poems enables the reader to witness, from his 1960 collection The Eyes of a Double Vision to new unpublished poems—in a bilingual edition—the poetic and personal evolution of this "visionary poet of lyrical bliss, crystalline concentrations and infinite spaces" (Kenneth Rexroth). Translated by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Martha Black Jordan, Philip Lamantia, W.S. Merwin, John Frederick Nims, Kenneth Rexroth, Jerome Rothenberg, Brian Swann, Barbara Szerlip, Nathaniel Tarn, Eliot Weinberger, and the editors.

About the Author
Homero Aridjis was born in Contapec, Mexico, on April 6, 1940, and has published twenty-eight books of poetry and prose. Recipient of many awards and two Guggenheim Fellowships, he is also a leading environmentalist. He has been instrumental in protecting the Monarch butterfly in Mexico, and the breeding grounds of whales off Baja. In 1987, he received the Global 500 Award from the UN Environmental Program. Aridjis also served as Mexican Ambassador to the Netherlands and Switzerland, and as President of International PEN for two terms.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

For the first time, a comprehensive Selected Poems in a bilingual edition, by Mexico's greatest living poet. Eyes to See Otherwise is the first extensive selection of poems by leading Mexican poet Homero Aridjis to appear in English. The scope and quality of the translations, by some of America's finest poets, mark the centrality of his work on the map of modern poetry. Aridjis's sources range from Nahuatl chants and Huichol initiation songs to San Juan de la Cruz and the 16th-century Spanish poet Luis de Góngora y Argote. He is, in the words of translator George McWhirter, "a troubadour of love for lost environments, a voice in the wilderness of Mexico City and Mexico." Included in this selection are poems by Aridjis evoking his own life, present and past, his memories always sticking close to his birthplace Contepec, where, on Altamirano Hill, the Monarch butterflies arrive each year. This long awaited Selected Poems enables the reader to witness, from his 1960 collection The Eyes of a Double Vision to new unpublished poems—in a bilingual edition—the poetic and personal evolution of this "visionary poet of lyrical bliss, crystalline concentrations and infinite spaces" (Kenneth Rexroth). Translated by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Martha Black Jordan, Philip Lamantia, W.S. Merwin, John Frederick Nims, Kenneth Rexroth, Jerome Rothenberg, Brian Swann, Barbara Szerlip, Nathaniel Tarn, Eliot Weinberger, and the editors.

Author Biography: Homero Aridjis was born in Contapec, Mexico, on April 6, 1940, and has published twenty-eight books of poetry and prose. Recipient of many awards and two Guggenheim Fellowships, he is also a leading environmentalist. He has been instrumental in protecting the Monarch butterfly in Mexico, and the breeding grounds of whales off Baja. In 1987, he received the Global 500 Award from the UN Environmental Program. Aridjis also served as Mexican Ambassador to the Netherlands and Switzerland, and as President of International PEN for two terms.

FROM THE CRITICS

Seamus Heaney

Homero Aridjis's poems open a door into the light.

Dick Russel

Now, for the first time, a collection of Aridjis's stunning poetry ranging over four decades.

Publishers Weekly