The Baker's Son : Selected Poems

Born in the province of Leon in 1957, Juan Carlos Mestre has emerged as one of the outstanding Spanish poets of the last fifty years. In this ample selection from three of Mestre's highly acclaimed collections, poetry becomes an explosion of language that surprises, wildly inventive and subtly moving. There is a baroque expansiveness to Mestre's work, a delight in stretching language to encompass the widest range of experiences. Behind the humour and playfulness lies a deep sense of life's tragedies, an implicit plea for compassion. Whether in the mix of filial tenderness and grief in 'Father' or in the humorous celebration of conjugal love in 'Argonauts', whether in a poem rich in political resonance like "Ancestors" or in a short poem about poetry like 'Tribe', Mestre knows how to touch the reader with a strangely unsettling clarity. Bristling with a dadaist spirit of irreverence, Juan Carlos Mestre's poetry never goes in obvious directions. Instead Mestre reminds us that poetry is the unnameable emotion, the truth forever just beyond our reach so that in a definitive way, as the poem 'The Baker's Son' tells us, "what is not said, is still said," and remains said. With translations by acclaimed Australian poet and translator Peter Boyle, The Baker's Son offers the English-speaking reader a first, very generous sample of Mestre's finest work.