Aguilar, Luis Miguel / Snodgrass, Kathleen (tr.): Selected Poems

Shearsman Books, paperback

Publication Date: April 12, 2024

Translated by: Kathleen Snodgrass

Publisher Marketing: "Luis Miguel Aguilar's work is a conversation, between the past and the present, between the educated and the lay person, between useless details and essentials, between erudite data and vital impulses. It is not a spur of the moment conversation, but one that arises from the serenity of an extended, long-term approach, tying up loose ends and giving rise to complete, complex and exalted theories." -Juan Manuel Gómez "Aguilar's poetry is unlike any other from Mexico in recent decades. Perhaps such a deliberately isolated position is even arrogant. It is a superior option in contemporary Mexican literature." -José Joaquín Blanco "There are poets who are born mature, broad-browed and clear of vision. Luis Miguel Aguilar is one of them. Each book is a gift full of surprises, riddles and enigmas that invite the reader to reread, piece by piece, to savour them: there is an erudite, cultured, referential voice; then there is a more melodic, simple voice that recites ballads and popular songs; and finally there is the intimate monologue, which deals with the familiar terroir and tries to decipher the meaning of life, with all its furies and its sorrows." -Arturo Dávila "His is a work and a voice that, as part of contemporary Mexican poetry, gives it weight and horizons that cannot be refuted. As a reader, I am grateful for this 'difficult minute' that Luis Miguel Aguilar has had to live through, which he says is between the vehement minute and the cowardly minute, adding: 'poetry is the difficult minute'." -José Javier Villarreal