Overview

José Emilio Pacheco’s Selected Poems is a major bilingual retrospective of the poetry of one of Mexico’s foremost writers. Born in 1939, Pacheco achieved recognition early, and while still in his twenties, he was already keeping company with the most important writers of his generation. A prolific poet and perfectionist, Pacheco published many volumes of poetry, including his famous 1969 collection No me preguntes como pasa el tiempo (Don’t Ask Me How the Time Goes By). This edition is edited by George McWhirter of The University of British Columbia, who worked closely with Pacheco himself in choosing the poems and their English translations. Besides McWhirter’s own versions are those by Edward Dorn, Alastair Reid, Katherine Silver, and others. As McWhirter writes: “In his singularity of vision and multiplicity of poetic forms, traditional and modern, Pacheco spans past and present in both Latin American and peninsular Spanish poetry. It is a glittering and giant technical achievement, as brilliant and instantly visible as Hart Crane’s The Bridge.”

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Reviews

An exceptional poet of daily life, impeccable.-- ""USA Today"" An intensely felt vision of life: abruptly we realize we have been led--almost trapped--into thoughtfulness.-- ""The New York Times Book Review"" For José Emilio Pacheco, time is the agent of universal destruction, and history--the passage of ruins...--Octavio Paz His work is universal, part of the eternal glory of literature.--Carlos Fuentes

Author Information

Author of the well-known novel Battles in the Desert, José Emilio Pacheco won the Mexican National Poetry Prize, the Premio José Asunción Silva Award, and the Cervantes Prize. He lived in Mexico City until his death in 2014. George McWhirter is an Irish-Canadian writer, translator, editor, teacher and Vancouver's first Poet Laureate. He has translated works by Mario Arregui, Carlos Fuentes, José Emilio Pacheco, and Homero Aridjis (for which he won the 2024 Griffin Poetry Prize).

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