SPOTLIGHT ON THE WORD

In her late-career examination of language, poetry, and song, renowned Brazilian poet and environmentalist Astrid Cabral focuses on the mystery and elusiveness of the very building blocks of her endeavor. Spotlight on the Word, Cabral’s third book in English translation, is a far-ranging contemplation of the poet’s endless endeavor to create meaning with the fragile and somehow inadequate material of her craft. For Cabral, what is expressed “knows nothing of who we really are,” and “the word in the head” is a “secret hidden star.” Her exploration of the writer’s relationship to language leads to reverent reflections on silence—what Keats might have been intimating with “negative capability” or painters with their “negative space”—suggesting an acceptance of the paradoxical nature of words which both define and limit, which sometimes blossom, but often do not fly. It is a writer’s testament to both her love and frustration in the eternal struggle to wrest from silence an inkling of meaning through the medium of the word.

In clear and chiseled language, humble but unapologetic, Astrid Cabral asserts the importance of both the poem and the poet throughout this book. Indeed, both silence and dialogue are dependent on the pair poem-and-poet, which provide the necessary pre-condition for life itself, through the structure of the page. The world is strange and bewildering and Cabral's words refuse to tame it, even as they reveal the subjectivity within objects themselves. Lucidly translated by Alexis Levitin these poems are important reminders of mortality, abundance, and the shared universe. —Leonard Schwartz

Spotlight on the Word moves keenly within and amongst enigmas of word and world. An intimacy is established that lessens the gap between ephemeral presences and their representation in language. The fulcrum of these meticulously calibrated poems is a holism that arises through contemplative practice and its inverse—worlding considerations simultaneously at play in this tensile, transformational work. Consciousness flourishes in this riveting, vital collection of poems. —Brenda Iijima

Astrid Cabral’s multi-layered exploration of language, specifically as it lives in poetry, rings full and rich in this artfully rendered translation by Alexis Levitin. —Sheryl St. Germain

Astrid Cabral’s most recent collection in English hums with investigations and declarations about poetry in poetry. The poem is “a fruit / found on no tree,” “the word is passage from the abstract / to the vicariously real,” and “abstractions” are necessarily both “living fish” and “kingdoms of quicksand.” Cabral manages to be both fervent and playful in her considerations of poetry—and of the “gag” of silence. Her translator, Alexis Levitin, not only matches her passion and inventiveness, but possesses an impressive talent for musicality—which is no mean feat. —Ellen Doré Watson

Contemporary Brazilian Literature. Portuguese Poetry. Environmental Poetry. Ecopoetics. Women Authors. Translation.