Indie Street Reads #40 • 08/07/10
SOLAR POEMS
CITY LIGHTS
This is the first book of poetry we’ve featured on Indie Street Reads and the first review I’ve ever written of this sort. Here, Mexican poet Homero Aridjis front-loads the book with the main course: The Solar Poems. These are easily my favorite and the most cohesive in the book. Throughout, Aridjis seamlessly blends psychological spaciness with ethereal political subversion. There’s a clear conscious sense of humanity in these poems which is probably why they’re the most attractive. A long time ago, I read the poetry of Ginsberg and, coming from City Lights, it’s no wonder that I’m stuck with the same emotional resonance here. The poems are presented side-by-side in the original Spanish and the translated English. I can only imagine how much more beautiful these read in the former… unfortunately, I barely paid any attention in Spanish class, so most of that knowledge is evaporated. The sense of heritage and belonging in history is also strong in Homero’s work. This should come as no surprise, as he was Mexico’s former Ambassador to UNESCO. Since the collapse of those relations, Aridjis has been an outspoken critic of the regrettable situation and there’s a clear subtext of that frustration in much of his work throughout this collection.
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What To Listen To While Reading This Book
Fenn O’Berg
