Paperback, 400pp, 9.25x7.5ins OUT OF PRINT
This book has been withdrawn from retail sale, as a new version of the text has been published by NYRB Poets in late 2021. There have been at least 2 light revisions of the original text since we published our edition, and a major one in the past 2 or 3 years, the original text of which is obtainable from a Spanish publisher. We do have a few copies of the 2004 edition left in stock, however. First come, first served…
Migrations is a long poem, the final version of which runs to seven books. The first six were published in Mexico City in a single volume in 2002 by the Fondo de Cultura Económica. This volume presents the complete original text of Migraciones , with recent revisions, plus the seventh book, hitherto only available in a limited-edition chapbook, together with Mark Schafer's inspired translation of the entire text.
"This book, 27 years in the making, is one of the more important poetic texts to emerge from Mexico, or just about anywhere, in recent decades. Lyrical and mystical, a song of the self and of exile and ancestry and tradition, of paradox and ambiguity, in which the reality of existence collides with the imagination of that existence, Migrations is truly an epic undertaking so immense that it defies, like all great poems, easy categorizing." (Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno – reviewing the US edition from Junction Press)
"Much has been made of Gervitz's life story in the interpretation of Migrations. 'But what does it matter what or whom I like or that my mother had an American name or that I wrote the poem over a certain number of years?' she asks. 'It's better to let the poem speak for itself.' And what a poem. Migrations
brings to mind the work of Pound and Eliot, both in its philosophical complexity and directness of voice. Often Pound and Eliot are invoked like casual accolades, an ornamental way of saying 'This is really good', but Gervitz shares more than their brilliance. She writes of an emotional, local and universal history—whilst openly and fluidly engaging with the chimera of language and thought. 'I speak to you from these words / From thought and the idea of thought / From what I remember.'" (Luke Kennard, Stride
magazine)
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