To World by Juan Gelman and translated by Katherine Hedeen

This is poetry from Argentina.

To World by Juan Gelman translated by Katherine Hedeen is published by Salt Publishing. This is a Book originally written in Spanish. This was published in 2014.0 and has the ISBN of 9.78184471986E12.

Juan Gelman’s To World, translated by Katherine Hedeen, sounds almost grammatically unfinished, and that incompletion feels right for Gelman. His poetry often addresses the world as though speech had been damaged by exile, dictatorship, love, and loss, but still insists on reaching outward. The title becomes a gesture of address: to world, to grief, to beloved, to history, to whatever remains capable of receiving a voice. Hedeen’s translation preserves the tenderness and strangeness of Gelman’s phrasing, which is crucial because his emotional power often depends on syntax bending under pressure. This is not poetry that separates private feeling from public catastrophe. It lets both inhabit the same breath. To World is a book for readers who want lyric address at its most vulnerable, where the poem is less a message delivered than an attempt to keep speaking through the break.

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.