Margins
What's in a Name book cover
What's in a Name
2017
First Published
3.73
Average Rating
166
Number of Pages

With the elliptical looping of a butterfly alighting on one’s sleeve, the poems of Ana Lui´sa Amaral arrive as small hypnotic miracles. Spare and beautiful in a way reminiscent both of Szymborska and of Emily Dickinson (it comes as no surprise that Amaral is the leading Portuguese translator of Dickinson), these poems—in Margaret Jull Costa’s gorgeous English versions—seamlessly interweave the everyday with the dreamlike and ask “What’s in a name?” “How solid is a name if answered to,” Amaral answers, but “like the Rose—no, like its perfume: ungovernable. Free.” There is much freedom within Amaral’s poetry, room for mysteries to multiply, and yet her beautiful lines are as clear as water: And that time of smiles Which does, incidentally, really exist, I swear, as does the fire And the invisible sea, which with nothing will agree

Avg Rating
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Author

Ana Luísa Amaral
Ana Luísa Amaral
Author · 5 books
ANA LUÍSA AMARAL nasceu em Lisboa, a 5 de Abril de 1956. Doutorada em Literatura Norte-Americana com uma tese sobre Emily Dickinson, ensinou Literatura Inglesa no Departamento de Estudos Anglo-Americanos da Faculdade de Letras do Porto. Autora de oito livros de poesia e dois livros infantis, está representada em diversas antologias portuguesas e estrangeiras e foi traduzida para várias línguas, como castelhano, inglês, francês, alemão, holandês, russo, búlgaro e croata. Faleceu a 6 de Agosto de 2022.
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