The Conjurer (Paperback or Softback)

The Conjurer is Pedro Serrano's second book from Arc, and includes work drawn from his three published collections in Mexico as well as unpublished work. These are powerful poems which explore the natural world in all its wonder with a close and meticulous attention that transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary. Serrano's rich and complex lexicon and his mastery of poetic form, metaphor and diction are perfectly captured in Anna Crowe's sensitive and compelling translation - for those who have not encountered Serrano's poetry before, this is an unmissable introduction to the work of one of Mexico's leading contemporary poets.

Pedro Serrano has published five collections of poems: El miedo (Fear, México El Tucán de Virginia, 1986); Ignorancia (Ignorance, México El Equilibrista, 1994); Tres poemas (Three Poems, Caracas Pequeña Venecia, 2000); Turba (Peat, Ediciones sin Nombre, Mexico, 2005); and Desplazamientos (Displacements, Editorial Candaya – Candaya Poesia 5, 2007). His latest collection of poems, Nueces was published in 2009 and a study on T. S. Eliot and Octavio Paz, La contrucción del poeta moderno: T. S. Eliot & Octavio Paz was published by UNAM / Conaculta in 2011.

With Carlos López Beltrán, Pedro edited and translated the groundbreaking anthology La generación del cordero: Antología de la poesía actual en las Islas Británicas (The Lamb Generation, Trilce, 2000) which brought together translations of thirty contemporary British poets. His libretto for the opera Marimbas de l’Exile / El Norte en Veracruz was first staged in Besançon, France in January 2000 and then travelled to Paris and Mexico. He has also translated Shakespeare’s King John into Spanish.

Many of his poems have been translated into English and have been published in Modern Poetry in Translation, Verse, Sirena, The Rialto, The Red Wheelbarrow and Nimrod Internacional Journal. He has been also included in the anthologies Reversible Monuments (Copper Canyon, 2002) and Connecting Lines (Sarabande Books, 2006).

Pedro Serrano was awarded a Guggenheim Poetry Fellowship in 2007. He teaches in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City. He is editor of UNAM’s highly regarded poetry website, Periódico de Poesía.

An interview with Pedro by Jack Little is featured on the Wasafari blog

Anna Crowe, born in Plymouth in 1945, is a poet and translator and the author of four poetry collections in English: Figure in a Landscape (2010), a Poetry Book Society Choice which was translated into Catalan and published in a bilingual edition as Paisatge amb figura (Ensiola, 2011) and which also received the Callum MacDonald Memorial Award in 2011; Skating Out of the House (1997), A Secret History of Rhubarb (2006), Punk with Dulcimer (2006); one in Spanish / English bilingual edition: L’ànima del teixidor (2000); and one in Catalan: Punk con salterio, translated by Joan Margarit (2008). She has translated three of Joan Margarit’s collections: Tugs in the Fog (Bloodaxe, 2006, a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation); Barcelona, amor final (2007, Catalan / Castilian / English trilingual edition); Strangely Happy (Bloodaxe, 2011). She has also translated Anna Aguilar-Amat’s Música i escorbut (Blesok, 2006); with Iolanda Pelegrí, an anthology of Catalan poetry, Miralls d’aigua (Light Off Water, Scottish Poetry Library / Carcanet Press, 2006); and, for Arc Publications Six Catalan Poets edited by Pere Ballart (2013), and Peatlands by the Mexican poet Pedro Serrano (2014).
Along with several other writers, she was a founder member of StAnza, the Scottish international poetry festival, and was artistic director during its first seven years. She has twice won the Peterloo Open Poetry competition, and in 2005 won a travelling scholarship from the Society of Authors.