Roundness of the Possible by José Enrique Delmonte
In dazzling poetic valedictions, Roundness of the Possible explores cosmic evanescence and liminality. José Enrique Delmonte’s poems (translated superbly by Shira Zohara Dickey) are extraordinary expressions of embodied consciousness and ecopoetics. In these poems, haunting lines such as “left-handed bees dream of right-handed futures” and “a placid whisper slows down the clocks” remind us to appreciate the beauty of transience and the sublimity of the natural world.
—Cassandra Atherton, Professor of Writing and Literature,
School of Communication and Creative Arts, Faculty
of Arts and Education, Deakin University, Australia
“Once there was the world / then there was uncertainty” writes José Enrique Delmonte in these cerebral poems translated impeccably by Shira Zohara Dickey. Here, readers are treated to the music of thinking, to poetry about thought, abstractions, essences that never shy too far from the conventional matter of poetry, the stuff of the senses. Hence, this is a very satisfying read appealing both to the philosopher and the sensualist in us.
—Indran Amirthanayagam
In the poem that opens this extraordinary collection of lyrics Delmonte offers a sense of his poetics. “Imminences” proposes not just an inspiritness in the things of the world but also in language, chaos and wonder; hence, throughout his work there is an ease in which image passes into image, abstraction, emotion, and thought. Cosmos, caterpillar, jasmine, “a plausible infinite closeness” and his “roundness of the possible” exist together—exist, perhaps, through each other. You can hear Nerval’s sense of unity, here, as well as Lorca’s mystery and Alberti’s complexities.
—Michael Anania
I had not known about the work of José Enrique Delmonte and am grateful to Shira Zohara Dickey for this accurate translation of his poetry, now made available to the readership by Marc Vincenz, Editor of MadHat Press.
—Alfred Corn, author of The Returns
Poet of the word, José Enrique Delmonte renews language with inspired metaphors that convey a rich and sensitive inner world. A brilliant architect by profession, Delmonte’s poetry plays with spaces, urban and natural, to give an innovative significant structure to his imaginary poetic universes.…
—José María Paz Gago, Writer, Full Professor of Comparative Literature, University of La Coruña, Spain
Roundness of the Possible/La redondez de lo posible
by José Enrique Delmonte
translated by Shira Zohara Dickey
$21.95, paperback, 104 pp
ISBN-13: 978-1-952335-80-8
