Ants of gold

Silvina Ocampo possessed her own special enchantment as a poet, and only now is her extraordinary poetic achievement becoming more widely recognized beyond Latin America. Remarkably, this is the first collection of Ocampo’s poetry to appear in English. From her early sonnets on the native Argentine landscape, to her meditations on love’s travails, to her explorations of the kinship between plant and animal realms, to her clairvoyant inquiries into history and myth and memory, readers will find the full range of Ocampo’s “metaphysical lyricism” (The Independent) represented in this...

La poesía se levanta con los días. Se alimenta de las luces y las sombras, del tatuar en la memoria, los lunares en las pieles, entonces aparece, la mirada del transeúnte, olores que viajan hacia el pasado, el olvido de la sangre, sin medir al tiempo. Cada voz guarda sus palabras en las manos del viento, las deja allí a la merced de otras voces que perpetúen su encuentro.

DESAGRAVIO DE LA CIGARRA Cántame hoy, cigarra, y olvídate del tiempo. Toda la vida cabe en un solo verano.

The vision begins with a river. From this river, you can see a village, marine life, and ancestral rituals. It is here that you recognize origins, and a poison beginning to spread through paradise. Suddenly, a premonition: a wounded animal. The certainty of war cries. What you take with you is what you become, each movement a gamble, a lottery of life that transforms you until this moment, when uncertainty becomes an ally. Lotería: Nocturnal Sweepstakes is a collection of deeply evocative coming-of-age poems that take the reader on a voyage through the intimate experiences of displacement....