Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology

Eschewing a ""`Greatest Hits' approach to literary anthologies,"" Tapscott, a literature professor at MIT, focuses on lyric forms as ""the most important mode of the Latin American poetic tradition"" and samples the works of more than 75 poets, including such giants as Neruda, Dario, Reyes, Vallejo, Borges and Paz. With original-language versions and translations set side by side, the collection is arranged in order of the poets' dates of birth from Jose Marti, born in Cuba in 1853, to Marjorie Agosin, born in the U.S. 102 years later. Tapscott's well-conceived and lucid introduction is expanded in concise individual introductions that provide basic information and some evaluation (""Underappreciated at the time of his death, Oswald de Andrade's presence has recently been felt more strongly in Brazillian intellectual life because of the influence of the Concretists, neo-Concretists, and semioticians""). Poems range from Neruda's well-known ""The Heights of Macchu Picchu"" to the lesser-known visual poems of Concretists such as Pedro Xisto. Particularly notable is the attention given to translations, many of which are done by other writers, e.g., W.S. Merwin, William Carlos Williams and John Updike. Tapscott's collection sets a standard likely to last well into the next century. (Aug.)