Blood of the Sun: Poems
“A perfect English rendering of Salgado Maranhão’s deft expression of the tonality of this people and land.” —Gregory Rabassa, acclaimed American translator

In poems brilliantly textured and layered, Salgado Maranhão integrates socio-political thought with subjects abstractly metaphysical. Concrete collides with conceptual—butcher shops, sex, and machine guns in conversation with language, absence, and time—resulting in a collection varied as well as unified, an aesthetic at once traditional and postmodern. Writing in forms both fixed and free, Maranhão’s language suggests a jazz-like musicality that rings true in Alexis Levitin’s masterful translations. For readers who enjoy the complexity of Charles Simic, or the stylistically innovative syntax of César Vallejo, Maranhão’s Blood of the Sun is a sensually provocative amalgamation of both.

“Alexis Levitin’s translation of the Afro-Brazilian poet Salgado Maranhão’s Blood of the Sun succeeds in negotiating the quirky experimental richness of Maranhão’s Pre-Columbian, Amazonian, and Yoruba influences with his traditional rhymed lyrics and jazz-like syncopations . . . Levitin skillfully alerts us to the presence of a complex and offbeat poet whose work merits a wide audience.” —Colette Inez, author of The Secret of M. Dulong

“What we see are classic themes of chivalry, reflections on the rural, a playful, imaginative use of language, a mix of romance and realism, and—oh yes—love, lyric narratives of calm resignation.” —Harvest Time

“Salgado Maranhão deliberately stretches the meanings of words up to their very limits to see if he can get more meaning out of words than they normally have.” —Plattsburgh Press-Republican
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Blood of the Sun: Poems
“A perfect English rendering of Salgado Maranhão’s deft expression of the tonality of this people and land.” —Gregory Rabassa, acclaimed American translator

In poems brilliantly textured and layered, Salgado Maranhão integrates socio-political thought with subjects abstractly metaphysical. Concrete collides with conceptual—butcher shops, sex, and machine guns in conversation with language, absence, and time—resulting in a collection varied as well as unified, an aesthetic at once traditional and postmodern. Writing in forms both fixed and free, Maranhão’s language suggests a jazz-like musicality that rings true in Alexis Levitin’s masterful translations. For readers who enjoy the complexity of Charles Simic, or the stylistically innovative syntax of César Vallejo, Maranhão’s Blood of the Sun is a sensually provocative amalgamation of both.

“Alexis Levitin’s translation of the Afro-Brazilian poet Salgado Maranhão’s Blood of the Sun succeeds in negotiating the quirky experimental richness of Maranhão’s Pre-Columbian, Amazonian, and Yoruba influences with his traditional rhymed lyrics and jazz-like syncopations . . . Levitin skillfully alerts us to the presence of a complex and offbeat poet whose work merits a wide audience.” —Colette Inez, author of The Secret of M. Dulong

“What we see are classic themes of chivalry, reflections on the rural, a playful, imaginative use of language, a mix of romance and realism, and—oh yes—love, lyric narratives of calm resignation.” —Harvest Time

“Salgado Maranhão deliberately stretches the meanings of words up to their very limits to see if he can get more meaning out of words than they normally have.” —Plattsburgh Press-Republican
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Blood of the Sun: Poems

Blood of the Sun: Poems

Blood of the Sun: Poems

Blood of the Sun: Poems

eBookBilingual edition (Bilingual edition)

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Overview

“A perfect English rendering of Salgado Maranhão’s deft expression of the tonality of this people and land.” —Gregory Rabassa, acclaimed American translator

In poems brilliantly textured and layered, Salgado Maranhão integrates socio-political thought with subjects abstractly metaphysical. Concrete collides with conceptual—butcher shops, sex, and machine guns in conversation with language, absence, and time—resulting in a collection varied as well as unified, an aesthetic at once traditional and postmodern. Writing in forms both fixed and free, Maranhão’s language suggests a jazz-like musicality that rings true in Alexis Levitin’s masterful translations. For readers who enjoy the complexity of Charles Simic, or the stylistically innovative syntax of César Vallejo, Maranhão’s Blood of the Sun is a sensually provocative amalgamation of both.

“Alexis Levitin’s translation of the Afro-Brazilian poet Salgado Maranhão’s Blood of the Sun succeeds in negotiating the quirky experimental richness of Maranhão’s Pre-Columbian, Amazonian, and Yoruba influences with his traditional rhymed lyrics and jazz-like syncopations . . . Levitin skillfully alerts us to the presence of a complex and offbeat poet whose work merits a wide audience.” —Colette Inez, author of The Secret of M. Dulong

“What we see are classic themes of chivalry, reflections on the rural, a playful, imaginative use of language, a mix of romance and realism, and—oh yes—love, lyric narratives of calm resignation.” —Harvest Time

“Salgado Maranhão deliberately stretches the meanings of words up to their very limits to see if he can get more meaning out of words than they normally have.” —Plattsburgh Press-Republican

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781571318688
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
Publication date: 10/05/2021
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 170
File size: 3 MB

About the Author

Salgado Maranhão won Brazil’s prestigious Prêmio Jabuti in 1999 for his book Mural of the Winds. In addition to nine books of poetry, including The Snake’s Fists, The Kiss of the Beast, Tiger’s Fur, and the very recent (2010) Collected Poetry, he has written song lyrics and made recordings with some of Brazil’s leading jazz and pop musicians. Alexis Levitin’s translations of Maranhão’s poems have previously appeared in BOMB, Brasil/Brazil, Dirty Goat, Fourth River, Measure, Osiris, Per Contra, Pleiades, Sirena, Spoon River Poetry Review, Subtropics, Turnrow, Words Without Borders, and Xavier Review.

Alexis Levitin has published more than twenty-five books of translation, including eleven collections of poems by Portuguese poet Eugénio de Andrade. His translations have appeared in more than numerous anthologies and hundreds of literary journals including Grand Street, Partisan Review, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, and Prairie Schooner. He has received four grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, two Fulbright Awards, and a number of other prestigious awards and residencies. Levitin teaches in the English program at the State University of New York, Plattsburgh.
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