Synopses & Reviews
Born in the south of Chile, but living and writing in the U.S. for the past thirty years, Raúl Barrientos eludes the easy categories: Latin American, Latino, American. All of these, and more. Yet always a poet, turning whatever he touches into startling imagery and gritty, enduring verse. These poems trace a trajectory from the 1973 coup d'etat in Chile to a difficult end-of-millennium in Manhattan. They give the reader a privileged view of a long and continually productive career in poetry—and a glimpse of the life behind it.
Review
"It is easy to sense the incantatory, nightmarish linguistic fire. . . . The publication of [Corriendo bajo la lluvia] is an occasion for optimism in terms of restoring lost dialogues and creating new ones at a time when, more than ever, perhaps, one can appreciate the therapeutic value of the poetic word as it joins readers from different generations and places in its secret, mycelial life." Steven F. White
About the Author
Raúl Barrientos was born in Puerto Montt, a small town in the south of Chile. He studied at the Unversidad de Concepcion, where he later became professor of theater. After the 1973 military coup he left Chile for the United States and pursued advanced studies in Spanish-American literatures at the University of Pennsylvania and SUNY-Stony Brook. He has published nine volumes of poetry.
Table of Contents
IntroductionFrom
Historic Account of the Kingdom of the Night (1982) Dark Love Pure Breezes Cross You Too On the Executions Dies Irae With a Fistful of Sand I have Lived on the Steps Negro Spiritual From
Ephemeral's Foot (1985) Crazy Bird at Summer's End / Outline of the Poem Knife Southward Pursuit Halloween Words in Memory of You Piano with Dagger Before a Mirror Bells Rooster Under the Same Sun "It Would Be Better, Reallly, If They Just Ate It All and We Ended This" "The Found His Armor in Lyons, Kansas. Assoc. Press" Stephanie Ruins Triptych: 1. Revealed (With Echo) 2. Sunset 3. Calm Before Rain From
Book of Images (1989) Hard Times Sunday Cellophane The River Those Crazy Bells (1932) When Fred Astaire Danced Into My Life The Witnesses Shoes The Public Life of Manhattan Pigeons The Circus And What Did They Do to the Strike? All that Jazz From
Monarch (1997) I'm the One Who Flies and You the Monarch Where to, Ariadne? The Messenger Was Carrying a Lamp Summer Concert Aquarium I, Who Came Running Back Through the Rain From
Neon Key (1998) Under the Bridge Renovation Ulysses the Blind Night Day after Day Bolero Lioness Penelope NotesThe authorThe editor and translators
CITATION: "It is easy to sense the incantatory, nightmarish linguistic fire. . . . The publication of [Corriendo bajo la lluvia] is an occasion for optimism in terms of restoring lost dialogues and creating new ones at a time when, more than ever, perhaps, one can appreciate the therapeutic value of the poetic word as it joins readers from different generations and places in its secret, mycelial life."--Steven F. White, Review Magazine
(Steven F. White, Review Magazine, Jan 1 2005 )