Poetry
In the Moremarrow
En la masmédula
Oliverio Girondo · 1954
Synopsis
The author's last book, the collection pushes to the limit, according to Action Books, the questions about the referential function of language and about nothingness already present in his earlier books. According to the poet Enrique Molina, language is overturned there: words lose their boundaries and fuse into “supermots” with multiple meanings. The title itself is a made-up word, which the English translator renders as Moremarrow.
Context
The first poems of the collection appeared in 1953 in the magazine Letra y línea, introduced by Aldo Pellegrini, according to escritores.org and Action Books; the BnF holds a Losada edition of 1954 and the definitive edition of 1956, also dated to 1957. Action Books sees in it the culmination of the Latin American avant-garde tradition born in the twenties and the opening of a more recent experimentalism. Molly Weigel's English translation was a finalist for the Best Translated Book Award in 2014.
Who it is for
A collection in Spanish made of fused and invented words; translated into English in 2013, not into French.
Prizes and reception
For Action Books, its author's major work; Cecilia Vicuña sees it as a landmark of Spanish-language poetry.