Altazor

[March Hare]

I just finished Altazor by Vincente Huidobro. Has anyone else read this book-length poem?

[quasimodo1]

“Huidobro’s great poem is the most radical experiment in the modern era. It is an epic that tells the adventures, not of a hero, but of a poet in the changing skies of language. Throughout the seven cantos we see Altazor subject language to violent or erotic acts: mutilations and divisions, copulations and juxtapositions. The English translation of this poem that bristles with complexities is another epic feat, and its hero is Eliot Weinberger."—Octavio Paz

[March Hare]

“Huidobro’s great poem is the most radical experiment in the modern era. It is an epic that tells the adventures, not of a hero, but of a poet in the changing skies of language. Throughout the seven cantos we see Altazor subject language to violent or erotic acts: mutilations and divisions, copulations and juxtapositions. The English translation of this poem that bristles with complexities is another epic feat, and its hero is Eliot Weinberger."—Octavio Paz

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Whitman hurtling through the Cosmos, transforming into who? a tongue-tied, drug-addled Lewis Carroll maybe, finally degenerating into a bird. Fantastic!