Selected Poems - Tapa blanda

Elsa Cross (b. 1946) is one of Mexico's most significant contemporary poets, and this is the first full-length collection of her work in English-a long overdue but welcome opportunity for Anglo-American readers to get a sense of the full breadth of her work. The work selected for this volume concentrates on her longer poems, which are at the core of Elsa Cross' work-ranging from the remarkable 'Bacchantes', dating from the late '70s and early '80s and offered here in full, through 'Malabar Canto'-suffused with the spirit of India-and the Mesoamerican world of the Jaguar poems, to the odes, dithyrambs and elegies of the recent Greek-inflected works. Elsa Cross' work is typified by its strong metaphysical orientation, coupled with a dazzling surface and remarkable imagery, and offers the English-speaking reader a new experience. A poetry to be savoured, thanks to the efforts of the five translators at work here, all of whom worked closely with the author to bring these poems successfully across the language barrier.

Elsa Cross was born in Mexico City in 1946. The majority of her work has been published in the volume Espirales. Poemas escogidos 1965-1999 (UNAM, 2000), but a new complete edition of her poetry is due from the Fondo de Cultura Economica in Mexico City. Her book El divan de Antar (1990) was awarded the Aguascalientes National Poetry Prize (1989), and Moira (1993) won the Jaime Sabines International Poetry Prize(1992), both in Mexico. Jaguar (2002), is inspired by different symbols and places of ancient Mexico. Books in other countries include a wide selection of her poetry, Miroir au soleil (Brussels, 1996) translated into French by Fernand Verhesen with a foreword by Octavio Paz, and other titles published in Canada and Spain. Her poems have been translated into twelve languages and published in magazines and more than sixty anthologies in different countries. She has also published essays. Elsa Cross has an MA and PhD in Philosophy from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where she holds a professorship and teaches Philosophy of Religion and Comparative Mythology. In 2008 Elsa Cross was awarded the most prestigious poetry prize in Mexico, the Xavier Villurrutia Prize,