Arcadia - Paperback

by María Baranda (Author), Paul Hoover (Translator), Aurelia Cortés Peyron (Translator)

The poetry of María Baranda is distinct for its size, scope, and intensity, as well as the depths of consciousness she explores. For this reason, she doesn't write lyrics of a single page designed to evoke a sigh, bur rather works of epic scale. As we see in Arcadia, the sweep of her work includes Góngora and Sor Juana, with the expansiveness of Whitman and universal concerns, but it is also personal, when the fourth wall falls and we witness the thoughts of a writer writing. The "I" of the poems is Baranda herself issuing, not a final statement, but a cry of what Charles Simic called "A certain uncertainty."

Paul Hoover

María Baranda keeps honing in on one of the most expressive lyricisms in contemporary Mexican poetry.

Forrest Gander