Table of Contents

ix Kidnapped by the Inexorable - TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION 2Esqueletos bajo el cielo - 3 Skeletons under the Sky 4La jaula en flor - 5 Cage in Bloom 6Catastrofe - 7 Catastrophe 8Ecuyere y militar - 9 Equestrienne and Officer 10Los bosques de marmol - 11 The Marble Forests 12La perdida - 13 Loss 14Gabriel - 15 Gabriel 16Heraldica - 17 Heraldry 18Van Gogh - 19 Van Gogh 20The Great Watcher - 21 The Great Watcher 22El espejo del alma - 23 Mirror of the Soul 24La ciudad nomade - 25 Nomadic City 26El padre - 27 The Father 28Dialogo con Gabriel I - 29 Dialogue with Gabriel I 30Lido - 31 Lido 32La visita - 33 The Visit 34La guia telefonica - 35 The Telephone Book 36El mapa del Tiempo - 37 The Map of Time 38Napoleon II - 39 Napoleon II 40Los amantes - 41 The Lovers 42Los ojos de Dios - 43 The Eyes of God 44El caballo blanco - 45 The White Horse 46El bebe - 47 The Baby 48Las tres madonas - 49 The Three Madonnas 50Tout cherche tout - 51 Tout cherche tout 52Carta a Sevres - 53 Letter to Sevres 54El diccionario infinito - 55 The Infinite Dictionary 56Las ventanas del siglo - 57 Windows on the Century 58Dialogo con Gabriel II - 59 Dialogue with Gabriel II 60Los dos cielos - 61 The Two Heavens 62Fata Morgana - 63 Fata Morgana 64New Jersey - 65 New Jersey 66Rosamundi - 67 Rosamundi 68Encrucijada - 69 Crossroads 70La ceguera - 71 Blindness 72Midgard - 73 Midgard 74La ropa - 75 Clothes 76El diluvio - 77 The Deluge 78Sleeping Beauty - 79 Sleeping Beauty 80El viaje - 81 The Journey 82Die Zeit - 83 Die Zeit 84Dialogo con Gabriel III - 85 Dialogue with Gabriel III 86Teoria de la luz - 87 Theory of Light 88Los hilos del ser - 89 Threads of Being 90Over Exposure - 91 Over Exposure 92Eternidad - 93 Eternity 94Los osos - 95 The Bears 96El mundo no termina - 97 The World Doesn't End 98Cuento de hadas - 99 Fairytale 100 Terra Incognita - 101 Terra Incognita 102Peridural y despojo - 103 Epidural and Plunder 104Hieros gamos - 105 Hieros gamos 106Dialogo con Gabriel IV - 107 Dialogue with Gabriel IV 108Simurgh - 109 Simurgh 110El libro de los seres - 111 The Book of Being 112El techo del mundo - 113 The Roof of the World 114El juego sin nombre - 115 The Anonymous Game 116Hurgalya, ciudad peregrina - 117 Hurgalya, Peregrine city 118Los cielos del otono - 119 Autumn Skies 122Teoria del buen morir - 123 Theory of a Good Death 124Casandra - 125 Cassandra 126Carta a mi misma - 127 Letter to Myself

Promotional Information

A mysterious configuration of presence and absence, Night Journey is an intricate symbolic mapping of identity. Maria Negroni has written a book in which each poem is an open window allowing us to observe the dangerous clash of unreality and reality. For as she writes: 'I began to name things, that is, to conceal them.' And so the reader enters the fascinating universe of a woman traveling amid and beyond fear, mirrors, and shadows. Night Journey: a book where existence is a daring language of dreams. -- Nicole Brossard, author of "Mauve Desert" Calvino's prose (as in Invisible Cities) is the only predecessor I can cite for Maria Negroni's sophisticated texts, and Anne Twitty's remarkable translations are quite as striking and idiomatic as William Weaver's celebrated versions of the Italian master. These prose poems have all the glamour of narrative fables and all the lyric density of odes. One reads through Night Journey with the rare certainty that this is literature, a sequence of passionate, sorrowing renunciations; and the singular elegance of the utterance, in English as in Spanish, brings these illuminations precisely to the level where Rimbaud had left that word. -- Richard Howard In El viaje de la noche, a sense of the uncanny is presented with a precise eloquence that preserves its hermetic nature... Here we have an exceptional book, one that transforms its dark, serene, and fearsome music into a desire to read and reread. -- Jorge Monteleone, "Pagina/12", Buenos Aires A great book ... -- Jordi Villalonga, "El Pais", Madrid

About the Author

Maria Negroni was born in Argentina in 1951. Recipient of the 2000-2001 Octavio Paz Fellowship for Poetry, she has published a novel, two books of essays, and six books of poetry in her native Spanish, as well as numerous translations from French to English. Night Journey is the English-language debut of El viaje de la noche (1994), which received an Argentine National Book Award in 1997. She teaches Latin American Poetry at Sarah Lawrence College. Anne Twitty's translations have been widely published and include the bilingual edition of Negroni's Islandia.

Reviews

"One of my own newest designated dreamers is the Argentine poet Maria Negroni, whose debut volume in English, Night Journey, takes the wordless logic of dreams and turns it into her own precise, oracular music. This book is pervaded by the spooky sense of a woman traveling in many directions, most of them unrequested, jouneying through shadows and mirrors, navigating the mysteries by shuttling between life and death."--Edward Hirsch, The Washington Post "Night Journey is a collection of prose poems, each recounting a dream sequence... Many of Negroni's dreams combine elements of surrealism and lyric narrative, which creates a matrix of symbols both archetypal and idiosyncratic through which the poet confronts generally nameless, yet recognizable, fears... It reminds me that when we read wonderful poetry it's as if we are privy to a delicious rumor, and we must pass it on."--Priscila Uppal, Toronto Globe and Mail "Arising from this intricate collection is a message. The poet comes to learn that her quest is both multiple and unified; for her, the act of writing cannot be separated from loving, from remembering, from voyagin out."--John Taylor, The Antioch Review