Details
In this collection of 65 short poems, Roberta Quance exemplifies the range, vitality and inner mysticism of work by one of Spain’s foremost, if controversial, contemporary female poets, drawing on the contents of a number of Spanish collections.
In Atencia’s poetry the poetic subject is often seen as someone who occupies an interior space, either crossing over the threshold from the outside world to an inner one (a garden, a house, a castle), or moving from the inner, home space to one even more interior: the world of dreams and imagination and hope, which can project outward into liminal spaces of the sky or the sea. A very basic paradox of Christian mystical experience – of abasement and magnification – haunts Atencia’s work. She has made her own one of its fundamental tenets: the purging of self, the shedding of all trace of worldly attachment in order to ‘make room’ for experience of a different reality: the self’s sense of ‘nothingness’ in the face of beauty is a prized moment in and of itself; it is sublime.
Atencia’s definitive manner: classically shaped verse in the tradition of the ‘pure poetry’ of the Generation of 1927, which makes myth of a womanly self, is amply explored in this first major English edition of her work to appear since 1987.
María Victoria Atencia was born in Málaga (Andalusia) in 1931 and has lived there or in the country thereabouts all of her life Although trained originally as a pianist she chose a vocation for poetry, instead, publishing her first work in 1953 and continuing to publish to the present day. In 2010 she was given the Federico García Lorca prize for poetry, in recognition of a lifetime of achievement.
Roberta Quance is Senior Lecturer in Spanish and Portuguese Studies at Queen’s University Belfast. She is author of books on mythology and modernity in modern literature and desire in the poetry of Lorca as well as articles on women writers and artists associated with the Generation of 1927 and translations of work by Carlos Piera.
In Atencia’s poetry the poetic subject is often seen as someone who occupies an interior space, either crossing over the threshold from the outside world to an inner one (a garden, a house, a castle), or moving from the inner, home space to one even more interior: the world of dreams and imagination and hope, which can project outward into liminal spaces of the sky or the sea. A very basic paradox of Christian mystical experience – of abasement and magnification – haunts Atencia’s work. She has made her own one of its fundamental tenets: the purging of self, the shedding of all trace of worldly attachment in order to ‘make room’ for experience of a different reality: the self’s sense of ‘nothingness’ in the face of beauty is a prized moment in and of itself; it is sublime.
Atencia’s definitive manner: classically shaped verse in the tradition of the ‘pure poetry’ of the Generation of 1927, which makes myth of a womanly self, is amply explored in this first major English edition of her work to appear since 1987.
María Victoria Atencia was born in Málaga (Andalusia) in 1931 and has lived there or in the country thereabouts all of her life Although trained originally as a pianist she chose a vocation for poetry, instead, publishing her first work in 1953 and continuing to publish to the present day. In 2010 she was given the Federico García Lorca prize for poetry, in recognition of a lifetime of achievement.
Roberta Quance is Senior Lecturer in Spanish and Portuguese Studies at Queen’s University Belfast. She is author of books on mythology and modernity in modern literature and desire in the poetry of Lorca as well as articles on women writers and artists associated with the Generation of 1927 and translations of work by Carlos Piera.
Table of Contents
The poems included in this selection are drawn from the following books:
Arte y parte [A hand in it]
Sazón/Season
Cañada de los Ingleses [Englishmen's ravine]
Epitafio para una muchacha/Epitaph for a young girl
Marta & María [Martha & Mary]
1 de diciembre/December 1st
Mar/Sea
San Juan/Midsummer night
Dejadme/Leave me
Con la mesa dispuesta/With the table laid
Ofelia/Ophelia
Marta & María/Martha & Mary
Los sueños [Dreams]
Quintana/Quintana
Color de rosa/Pale pink
El conde D./Count D.
El mundo de M.V. [The world of M.V.]
El retiro de Fray Alonso/Fray Alonso’s retreat
Karlskoga/Karlskoga
Ecclesiastes 3,5/Ecclesiastés 3:5
Godiva en blue jean/Godiva in blue jeans
El coleccionista [The collector]
Plazoleta de San Marcos/Little square at St. Mark’s
Lázaro/Lazarus
Compás binario [Binary time]
Castellar/Castellar
Epitafio/Epitaph
Jorge Manrique/Jorge Manrique
Cuesta de la Reina/‘Hillside of the Queen’
La rama de oro/The golden bough
Jardín/Garden
Mujer de Lot/Lot’s wife
Convoy extranjero/Foreign convoy
Temporal de Levante/Storm from the east
El mundo de Cristina/Christina’s world
Paulina o el libro de las aguas [Paulina, or the book of waters]
Paolina Borghese/Paulina Borghese
Eva/Eve
El río/The river
Retrato de una joven dormida/Portrait of a young woman sleeping
Lavadero viejo/Old wash house
Esa luz/That light
La llave/The key
Trances de Nuestra Señora [Moments in the life of Our Lady]
La visita/The visit
Victoria/Victory
Árbol de Navidad/Christmas tree
De la llama en que arde [Of the flame in which each burns]
Campo de Villanueva/Countryside around Villanueva
Los Jerónimos/The hermits of St. Jerome
Al otro lado del tiempo/On the other side of time
Noviembre/November
Varón de miel/Man of honey
Peñafiel en Castilla/Peñafiel in Castile
El gesto/The pose
La pared contigua [The adjoining wall]
La Gran Muralla/The Great Wall
Baldío/Wasteland
La marcha/The march
La música/Music
La intrusa [The intruder]
Hija mía, hija mía/My child, my child
Clara Schumann a Brahms/Clara Schumann to Brahms
Verónica/Veronica
La intrusa/The intruder
Las contemplaciones [The considerations]
La umbela/The umbel
El viento/The wind
Cobijo/Shelter
Jacintos/Hyacinths
El hueco [The hollow]
Febrero/February
La fuente/The fountain
Tierra/Earth
De pérdidas y adioses [Of losses and goodbyes]
Como el dios en el cisne/Like the god in the swan
El deseo/Desire
El azor/The goshawk
El umbral [The threshold]
Los pájaros/The birds
La tinta, el curso azul/Ink, the course of blue
Arte y parte [A hand in it]
Sazón/Season
Cañada de los Ingleses [Englishmen's ravine]
Epitafio para una muchacha/Epitaph for a young girl
Marta & María [Martha & Mary]
1 de diciembre/December 1st
Mar/Sea
San Juan/Midsummer night
Dejadme/Leave me
Con la mesa dispuesta/With the table laid
Ofelia/Ophelia
Marta & María/Martha & Mary
Los sueños [Dreams]
Quintana/Quintana
Color de rosa/Pale pink
El conde D./Count D.
El mundo de M.V. [The world of M.V.]
El retiro de Fray Alonso/Fray Alonso’s retreat
Karlskoga/Karlskoga
Ecclesiastes 3,5/Ecclesiastés 3:5
Godiva en blue jean/Godiva in blue jeans
El coleccionista [The collector]
Plazoleta de San Marcos/Little square at St. Mark’s
Lázaro/Lazarus
Compás binario [Binary time]
Castellar/Castellar
Epitafio/Epitaph
Jorge Manrique/Jorge Manrique
Cuesta de la Reina/‘Hillside of the Queen’
La rama de oro/The golden bough
Jardín/Garden
Mujer de Lot/Lot’s wife
Convoy extranjero/Foreign convoy
Temporal de Levante/Storm from the east
El mundo de Cristina/Christina’s world
Paulina o el libro de las aguas [Paulina, or the book of waters]
Paolina Borghese/Paulina Borghese
Eva/Eve
El río/The river
Retrato de una joven dormida/Portrait of a young woman sleeping
Lavadero viejo/Old wash house
Esa luz/That light
La llave/The key
Trances de Nuestra Señora [Moments in the life of Our Lady]
La visita/The visit
Victoria/Victory
Árbol de Navidad/Christmas tree
De la llama en que arde [Of the flame in which each burns]
Campo de Villanueva/Countryside around Villanueva
Los Jerónimos/The hermits of St. Jerome
Al otro lado del tiempo/On the other side of time
Noviembre/November
Varón de miel/Man of honey
Peñafiel en Castilla/Peñafiel in Castile
El gesto/The pose
La pared contigua [The adjoining wall]
La Gran Muralla/The Great Wall
Baldío/Wasteland
La marcha/The march
La música/Music
La intrusa [The intruder]
Hija mía, hija mía/My child, my child
Clara Schumann a Brahms/Clara Schumann to Brahms
Verónica/Veronica
La intrusa/The intruder
Las contemplaciones [The considerations]
La umbela/The umbel
El viento/The wind
Cobijo/Shelter
Jacintos/Hyacinths
El hueco [The hollow]
Febrero/February
La fuente/The fountain
Tierra/Earth
De pérdidas y adioses [Of losses and goodbyes]
Como el dios en el cisne/Like the god in the swan
El deseo/Desire
El azor/The goshawk
El umbral [The threshold]
Los pájaros/The birds
La tinta, el curso azul/Ink, the course of blue