HIS TONGUE A SWATH OF SKY
advance praise for His Tongue a Swath of Sky
“In the tradition of Jack Spicer’s After Lorca, Francisco Aragón’s His Tongue a Swath of Sky lovingly carries across time and space and poetic forms the poems of Rubén Darío, bringing modernismo’s white swan into the present, not to twist its neck, but to reveal in its curvature that the question of original and translation can also be asked of the literary icon and América itself: where do they begin and end, and what imaginary borders have we projected onto them?”
—Rosa Alcalá “His Tongue a Swath of Sky composes a mirage of past and present, Spanish and English, bodies and poems. With Rubén Darío doubling as situated self, Aragón challenges the relationship between original and afterlife. He amends the historical record by turning the figures of modernista pastoral into the arcadia of queer desire. Akin to what Haroldo de Campos called “transcreations,” Aragón sculpts his material as syllables not only on the side of subject matter, but in pursuit of “a shape//which to my style remains/elusive.”
—Roberto Tejada |
His Tongue A Swath of Sky is for sale directly from the author only. All proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the University of Notre Dame's Institute for Latino Studies
The colophon reads as follows:
“His Tongue a Swath of Sky was designed by Stephanie Sauer of ArtLyrics in collaboration with the author. Sauer bound all copies by hand between her workshops in Brasília and California.
Each chapbook includes a blue flyleaf made from sustainably cultivated banana leaf fiber by artists Carmem Lúcia Prado and Leila Prado of Papel do Quintal in São Sebastião, Brazil.
Binding was done with linen thread from Ireland.
The text was typeset digitally in Copperplate Gothic and Garamond.
Printing was done in offset by Grá ca Positiva in Brasília on Markatto Concetto Bianco 320 g/m2 and Pólen Bold LD 90 g/m2.
This is a one-time-only Edition of 200, each signed by the author, with a publication year of 2019.”
The colophon reads as follows:
“His Tongue a Swath of Sky was designed by Stephanie Sauer of ArtLyrics in collaboration with the author. Sauer bound all copies by hand between her workshops in Brasília and California.
Each chapbook includes a blue flyleaf made from sustainably cultivated banana leaf fiber by artists Carmem Lúcia Prado and Leila Prado of Papel do Quintal in São Sebastião, Brazil.
Binding was done with linen thread from Ireland.
The text was typeset digitally in Copperplate Gothic and Garamond.
Printing was done in offset by Grá ca Positiva in Brasília on Markatto Concetto Bianco 320 g/m2 and Pólen Bold LD 90 g/m2.
This is a one-time-only Edition of 200, each signed by the author, with a publication year of 2019.”