The Great Zoo
Nicolás Guillén, trans. from the Spanish by Aaron Coleman. Univ. of Chicago, $18 trade paper (96p) ISBN 978-0-226-83479-5
First published in 1967, this brilliantly inventive collection from Cuban poet Guillén (Yoruba from Cuba) takes the reader through “a great zoo” that “was created/ for natives and foreigners/ and the pride of our nation.” Each of the collection’s 39 poems corresponds to one of the zoo’s “specimens,” including real-life animals (“Beetles,” “Gorilla,” “Monkeys”) as well as natural phenomena (“The Winds,” “The Clouds”), human figures (“Gangster,” “The Pimp”), astronomical objects (“Moon”, “The North Star”), and intangible subjects (“The Dream,” “The Hunger”). Several poems display an interest in race and Blackness, as in “KKK” and “The Rivers,” where “the Mississippi with its Blacks” and “the Amazon with its Indians” are compared to “serpents... coiled up on themselves.” The poetic voice is often understated and lighthearted (“The papaya./ Vegetal/ animal./ It’s not true/ that it’s familiar with original sin”), though it moves, at times, into rich figuration (the clouds “that announce the Evening Star” are “like serpents in flames”). With wit and irony, Guillén, a major figure in Latin American poetry whose parents were of African and European ancestry, toggles between seeing and being seen, spectator and spectacle, transforming familiar parts of the world into objects of observation. Readers will be wowed. (Oct.)
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Reviewed on: 01/07/2025
Genre: Poetry