Voices from the Other Side of Death

by Ariel Dorfman

Overview

In his new collection, poet Ariel Dorfman explores death, grief and redemption, hoping that “the light I have invented, the words with which we have all been blessed, will sweeten the death that fast approaches for me.” The famed writer, academic and activist writes about intimate family matters and revisits recurring themes in his work, including war, social justice and climate change.

In a series of poems written from the perspective of deceased historical figures to contemporary politicians and soldiers, he warns about the need for reckoning and atonement. In one, Pablo Picasso speaks to Colin Powell, asking why his famous painting depicting the horror of war, Guernica, was covered when the secretary of state spoke about the invasion of Iraq at the United Nations. “Were you afraid that the mother / would leap from her image and say / no he is the one / they are the ones who will bomb / from afar / they are the ones who will kill / the child.” In another, Salvador Allende encourages Barack Obama to fight for his beliefs, “So that when you arrive on these shores / and look back as I do, you will have no regrets.”

Others explore connections to loved ones, including “the love of my life, Angélica, the woman who helped me survive exile and tribulations and peopled my world with hope.” He writes about the passionate love the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan felt for his wife, which led to the construction of the Taj Mahal, and imagines conversations between William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes, who died within hours of each other. Neither escaped the iron rule of mortality: “The story of our own death is the one experience we are unable to transmit to anybody else.” Though written by an internationally acclaimed intellectual, these incredibly moving poems share the most human of emotions and expose Dorfman’s vulnerability as he embarks on the last leg of his journey.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781558859364
Publisher:	Arte Publico Press
Publication date:	03/31/2022
Pages:	92
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Ariel Dorfman is an Argentine-Chilean-American novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, academic and human rights activist. He is the author of many literary and journalistic works in both Spanish and English that have been translate into over 50 languages; he has won numerous awards, including two distinctions from the Kennedy Center. He lives in Durham, North Carolina, and is the Walter Hines Page Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of Literature at Duke University.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Remembering How I Stood in Front of the Statue of Notre Dame De La Consolation at the Église St. Germain-des-Prés vii

1 Some Sort of Meeting

Pablo Picasso Has Words for Colin Powell from the Other Side of Death 2

Christopher Columbus Has Words from the Other Side of Death for Captain John Whyte, Who Rebaptized Saddam International Airport as His Troops Rolled into It 6

Hammurabi, the Exalted Prince Who Made Great the Name of Babylon, Has Words from the Other Side of Death for Donald Rumsfeld 12

William Blake Has Words from the Other Side of Death for Laura Bush, Lover of Literature 17

Salvador Allende Has Words for Barack Obama from the Other Side of Death 21

James Buchanan, the 15th President of the United States, Has Words of Encouragement from the Other Side of Death for Donald J. Trump Just Before His Inauguration in January 2017 26

Dante Alighieri Has Words from the Other Side of Death for Donald J. Trump as His Presidency Ends 30

2 Dust in Love

Mumtaz 38

Ashes to Ashes 46

Is There a Place Your Lips Go? 48

Long Forgotten 51

Glitch 57

Ten Minutes 62

Waving Good-Bye 64

Elegy for the Plants as They Are Harvested and Eaten 65

Shakespeare and Cervantes Write to Each Other on the Occasion of the Four Hundred Years of Their Simultaneous Disappearance from This World 67

A Question for Shakespeare and Cervantes 69

3 A Grain of Wheat in the Silence

Reprieve 74

For Sarajevo, After a Thousand and One Nights of Siege 79

Farewell and Dawn 83

Poem for the Grandchildren of Three Five O₂ 85

Anything Else Would Have Tasted Like Ashes 89

Last Will and Testament 93

A Sort of Epilogue with Help from Francisco De Quevedo 95

Requiem for Some Cenizas 98

Some Words of Thanks and Gracias from This Side of Death 101