A Musical Hell by Alejandra Pizarnik and translated by Yvette Siegert

This is poetry from Argentina.

A Musical Hell by Alejandra Pizarnik translated by Yvette Siegert is published by New Directions Publishing Corporation. This is a Book originally written in Spanish. This was published in 2013.0 and has the ISBN of 9.780811220965E12.

A Musical Hell, translated by Yvette Siegert, brings together Alejandra Pizarnik’s late intensity: music, silence, self-division, theatrical darkness, and the almost unbearable pressure of language trying to survive itself. Pizarnik’s hell is not simply despair. It is musical, which means it has structure, recurrence, rhythm, and a strange beauty that cannot be cleanly separated from suffering. Siegert’s translation keeps the English lean and charged, avoiding the temptation to make the poems smoother than they are. This is a book for readers who want to sit with difficulty without converting it into an inspirational lesson. Pizarnik does not redeem anguish. She gives anguish a voice precise enough that the reader can hear its shape. A Musical Hell belongs in any serious translated poetry collection because it shows how lyric extremity can become both devastating and formally luminous.

If you’d like to see international poetry continue and gain traction, consider requesting this work from your local library, or purchasing it from places like Open Books (a poetry only bookstore), Asterism Books (an independent press distributor), or bookshop.org to connect you with your local bookstores.

Check out more of the always in-progress translated poetry index here.