Transpoetic Exchange: Haroldo de Campos, Octavio Paz, and Other Multiversal Dialogues

by Marília Librandi (Editor), Marília Librandi (Contribution by), Jamille Pinheiro Dias (Editor), Jamille Pinheiro Dias (Contribution by), Tom Winterbottom (Editor)

Overview

Transpoetic Exchange  illuminates the poetic interactions between Octavio Paz (1914-1998) and Haroldo de Campos (1929-2003) from three perspectives—comparative, theoretical, and performative. The poem Blanco by Octavio Paz, written when he was ambassador to India in 1966, and Haroldo de Campos’ translation (or what he calls a “transcreation”) of that poem, published as Transblanco in 1986, as well as Campos’ Galáxias, written from 1963 to 1976, are the main axes around which the book is organized.
 
The volume is divided into three parts. “Essays” unites seven texts by renowned scholars who focus on the relationship between the two authors, their impact and influence, and their cultural resonance by exploring explore the historical background and the different stylistic and cultural influences on the authors, ranging from Latin America and Europe to India and the U.S. The second section, “Remembrances,” collects four experiences of interaction with Haroldo de Campos in the process of transcreating Paz’s poem and working on Transblanco and Galáxias. In the last section, “Poems,” five poets of international standing—Jerome Rothenberg, Antonio Cicero, Keijiro Suga, André Vallias, and Charles Bernstein.

Paz and Campos, one from Mexico and the other from Brazil, were central figures in the literary history of the second half of the 20th century, in Latin America and beyond. Both poets signal the direction of poetry as that of translation, understood as the embodiment of otherness and of a poetic tradition that every new poem brings back as a Babel re-enacted.
 
This volume is a print corollary to and expansion of an international colloquium and poetic performance held at Stanford University in January 2010 and it offers a discussion of the role of poetry and translation from a global perspective. The collection holds great value for those interested in all aspects of literary translation and it enriches the ongoing debates on language, modernity, translation and the nature of the poetic object.

Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684482160
Publisher:	Bucknell University Press
Publication date:	06/12/2020
Series:	Bucknell Studies in Latin American Literature and Theory
Pages:	190
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Marília Librandi is a visiting professor of Brazilian studies at Princeton University. She taught in the Department of Iberian and Latin American Cultures, at Stanford University, from 2009 to 2018. She is the author of Writing by Ear: Clarice Lispector and the Aural Novel and of Maranhão-Manhattan. Ensaios de Literatura Brasileira.

Tom Winterbottom has published numerous articles and essays on Latin American culture, including his first book, A Cultural History of Rio de Janeiro after 1889: Glorious Decadence. He teaches at Stanford University.

Jamille Pinheiro Dias holds a PhD in Modern Languages from the University of São Paulo, where she is currently a postdoctoral fellow. She was also a visiting researcher at Stanford University. As a translator, she worked with authors such as Marilyn Strathern, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, and Alfred Gell.
 

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Multiversal Experiment Marília Librandi Jamille Pinheiro Dias Tom Winterbottom 1

Part I Essays

1 On the Presence of Absence: Octavio Paz's "Blanco" Enrico Mario Santí 9

2 "Blanco" and Transblanco: Modern and Post-Utopian Joao Adolfo Hansen 17

3 Refiguring the Poundian Ideogram: From Octavio Paz's "Blanco/Branco" to Haroldo de Campos's Galáxias Marjorie Perloff 30

4 Poetry Makes Nothing Happen Marília Librandi 41

5 Haroldo de Campos, Octavio Paz, and the Experience of the Avant-Garde Antonio Cicero 55

6 "Blanco": A Version of Mallarme's Heritage Luiz Costa Lima 62

7 Translation and Radical Poetics: The Case of Octavio Paz and the Noigandres Odile Cisneros 73

Part II Remembrances

8 Pages, Pageants, Portraits, Prospects: An Austin-atious Remembrance of Haroldo de Campos Charles A. Perrone 87

9 "Logopéia via Goethe via Christopher Middleton": An Unknown Recording of Haroldo de Campos (Austin, 1981) Kenneth David Jackson 94

10 Meeting in Austin Benedito Nunes 104

Part III Poems

11 Three Variations on Octavio Paz's "Blanco" and Fifteen Antiphonals for Haroldo de Campos, with a Note on Translation, Transcreation, and Othering Jerome Rothenberg 113

12 Poems Antonio Cicero 122

13 Waves of Absence Keijiro Suga 127

14 Hexaemeron: The Six Faces of Haphazard André Vallias 131

15 Amberianum (Philosophical Fragments of Caudio Amberian) Charles Bernstein 140

Acknowledgments 145

Notes 147

Bibliography 161

Notes on Contributors 167

Index 171

What People are Saying About This

author of José Emilio Pacheco and the Poets of the Shadows - Ronald Friis

"Inspired by the eclectic form of Haroldo de Campos's Transblanco, this volume blends essays by authoritative critics of twentieth century poetics with personal reflections, creative work, and previously unpublished material by and about Haroldo de Campos and Octavio Paz. Transpoetic Exchange holds great value for readers interested in all aspects of poetry and translation and its transnational approach taps into an important current in contemporary literary studies."

Editorial Reviews

"Offers an homage to the creative relationship between Octavio Paz and Haroldo de Campos in a volume stemming from the eponymous Stanford University event in Winter 2010 that gathered scholars, artists and poets from all the corners of the globe....Recognizing presence and precedence, Transpoetic Exchange journeys across cultures and traditions, languages and geographies, words and the verbal rawness of blank in the page."

Bulletin of Spanish Studies

"Inspired by the eclectic form of Haroldo de Campos's Transblanco, this volume blends essays by authoritative critics of twentieth century poetics with personal reflections, creative work, and previously unpublished material by and about Haroldo de Campos and Octavio Paz. Transpoetic Exchange holds great value for readers interested in all aspects of poetry and translation and its transnational approach taps into an important current in contemporary literary studies."

From the Publisher