COMMENTARIES AND CITATIONS - Translation and Commentary by Lisa Rose Bradford

Oct 5, 2026

Commentaries and Citations presents Juan Gelman’s poems of love-in-absence, past-in-present, and clarity-in-pain, shaped by ecstasy and exile. Dedicated to his homeland, the collection builds nostalgia and desire through responses to texts ranging from the Bible to mystics and tango, while pushing the limits of language and authorship. This bilingual Spanish/English edition offers the poems in full, alongside translation and commentary by Lisa Rose Bradford.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages248

Reading Time6 h 22 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Themes and leitmotifs

Gelman’s early career

Limits of language and neologism

Displacement through pseudotranslations

Political engagement and exile

Commentariesand Citations Juan Gelman 04/23 STRAND PRICE 臣$3.00 translation and commentary by Lisa Rose Bradford Love-in-absence,past-in-present,and clarity-in-pain are the major themesof COMMENTARIES AND CITATIONS.In these poems,dedicated to hismotherland,Argentine poet-in-exile Juan Gelman composes nostalgia and desireby invoking and responding to texts that range from the Bible to the mysticsand on to tango.In his unique fashion,he trespasses the limits of languageand authorship to produce an unusual love poetry of cascading rhythms andstunning imagery.These poems are for the first time rendered in their entirety inthis en face Spanish/English edition. "Juan Gelman's anguished/soulful/tormented/sensual/ecstatic poems—like thoseof César Vallejo and Paul Celan among modern poets,and echoing earlier Jewishand Christian mystics—aspire to grace and transcendence by way of linguistictrans/formation,fracturing and torquing language in search of the unsayable.LisaBradford's sensitive translations,without reducing the densities of the orginaArgentine,beautifully convey in English Gelman's wounded lyric questionings." —Stephen Kessler,winner of the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award for Louis Cernuda's Desolation of the Chimera “Is religion the opium of the people?Gelman's poetry is not a ritual condemnationof religiosity but rather a unique energy that appropriates it and detaches itfrom itself;this is particularly true of his rewriting of the Spanish mystics inCommentaries and Citations:Gelman reads Saint Teresa as if within her werespeaking the voice of a militant revolutionary exiled from her love,from hercountry.An invention both perturbing as affective,it affects the language andplaces it in a state that we would never have before imagined.” —Miguel Dalmaroni,author of La plabra justa.Literatura,criticay memoria en Argentina (1960-2002) Work published within the framework ofthe SUR TranslationSupport Program of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,International Trade and Religion ofthe Argentine Republic. E X000AHGTKT COIMB Commentaries an…panish Edition)UsedVeryGood POETRY Digitized by the Internet Archivein 2024 # COMMENTARIES AND CITATIONSComentarios y citas A gift fromRainer fchulte # COMMENTARIES AND CITATIONS Juan Gelman Translation and Commentary byLisa Rose Bradford Work published within the framework of the SUR TranslationSupport Program of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,International Trade and Religion of the Argentine Republic Copyright ◎2010 Juan GelmanIntroduction and translation copyright ◎2010 Lisa Rose Bradford All rights reserved under International andPan-American Copyright Conventions. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without thewritten permission of the publisher,except by a reviewer,who mayquote brief passages in connection with a review for a magazine ornewspaper. ISBN:978-0-9826556-3-4 Book layout:Cherie Poland Cover design:Stelli Munnis Cover painting:Acumulación by Carlos Gorriarena,1999 Published in the United States by Coimbra Editions,San Francisco,California California Institute of Arts and Letterswww.calartsandletters.org # INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION ...leading]us to ponder what other symbolic languages there mightbe to express our stubborn sense of connection with eternal things. Robert Alter,xxii,in Scholem Ecstasy and exile,though apparently a far-fetched couple,are tightly boundin Juan Gelman's collection of poems,Commentaries and Citations.Justas etymologically both words share the notion of displacement,in thesepoems they serve as a leitmotif for a fugue-like exploration of love-in-absence,past-in-present and vision-in-pain.With pieces of mystical verseand tango,this Argentine poet-in-exile assembles a poetry to "keep com-pany”with seminal writers of Spanish literature and the music of hishomeland.Dedicated to "my country,"these poems become dialogues of“co-incidence”wherein Gelman crafts the langua

FAQs

What themes dominate Commentaries and Citations?

The poems center on love-in-absence, past-in-present, and clarity-in-pain, using exile and ecstasy as tightly linked motifs.

How does the collection engage other texts and traditions?

Gelman evokes and responds to sources that span the Bible, mystics, and tango, treating them as living interlocutors within the poems.

What is special about this edition?

The volume is the first time the poems are rendered in their entirety in an en face Spanish/English edition, with translation and commentary by Lisa Rose Bradford.

Oct 5, 2026

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