Legna Rodríguez Iglesias

A d nde orientan hoy los ojos telesc picos del roedor? Cuba, Miami o Manhattan? Dec danlo al leer Transtuc , de Legna Rodr guez Iglesias. Estos poemas, a trav s de formas breves y calculada musicalidad, obligan a echar nuevas miradas a las pol ticas de territorio y los imaginarios de pertenencia. Que si nos callamos ahora para que puedan leer? Por supuesto. Esperamos que los disfruten, porque, d nde m s van a leer sobre un Heidegger trotamundos que se pasea por el Caribe? (Cristian Lagunas)

Legna Rodr guez Iglesias crea un herbario con los t tulos de Ilusiones de bot nica, Canistel, tamo, Pimiento, Llant n, Albahaca o Ciruela, para celebrar la vocaci n agr noma de sus padres. En un efficiency de Little Havana en 2016, diseca d as speros en poemas heptas labos, octos labos y endecas labos, "Escrib a metida en los rincones/del sal n de las sillas para inv lidos". Hojas de plantas sin savia circulante, como aquellas coleccionadas por Emily Dickinson, pegadas con vendaje a p ginas en blanco. A os despu s, pide dibujos para cada fruta, vegetal o hierba sanadora a Laura B. Marrero, y completa el herbario como si entre los trazos de grafito y los textos no existiera el tiempo ni el desarraigo y sus versos fueran indudables: "Mis libros no sabr n qu es el exilio". Martha M. Montejo Pizarro]

La relaci n de los cubanos con el mundo material cambi a partir de 1959. El aumento de la tasa arancelaria de las importaciones de art culos de lujo, la nacionalizaci n de la industria y el comercio, el racionamiento de los productos alimenticios y de vestir de primera necesidad, la emigraci n de las clases econ micas, la persecuci n estatal de ciertas formas de vestir, entre otros factores, trajeron un giro, en muchos casos radical, en la forma de producir, comercializar, utilizar e incluso pensar la materialidad. Desde entonces, los cubanos se han dedicado a guardar todo lo que piensan que pudiera en alg n otro momento necesitar. Tres d cadas bastaron para almacenar una considerable cantidad de objetos, antes de que la crisis econ mica causada por la desaparici n del campo socialista a partir de 1989 y la desintegraci n de la Uni n Sovi tica en 1992 obligara a echar mano de todo lo acumulado. Cuba Material es el archivo de la bulimia acumulativa que preserv parte del entramado material del socialismo de Estado cubano. Cuba Material es la merma. Este libro, donde se combinan estrechamente poemas de Legna Rodr guez Iglesias y objetos de la vida cubana de las ltimas d cadas, es tambi n como una tienda de comisiones, o como un museo donde se exhiben piezas nicas del pasado, o retazos de memoria.

Como en una pel cula de Kelly Reichardt, la protagonista de esta historia se mueve entre exposiciones, presentaciones de libros, estudios de artistas o barrios gentrificados con esa mirada perpleja y en apariencia ingenua que termina por taladrar lo observado. La cr tica madre se constituye entonces como una libreta de apuntes sobre la conquista del territorio de la Am rica gringa por parte de artistas nacos, ilegales, desviados, mestizos, caribe os, de g nero fluido y que sobre todo no tienen donde caerse muertos. Los mejores rasgos de sus lenguajes de resistencia, que son tambi n sus cabezas de playa, son realzados en esta escritura distante de los convencionalismos de la academia o la cr tica al uso. De eso se trata la cr tica madre en este libro que puede leerse a la manera de un cat logo de raros, el diario de campa a mayamense de una migrante o el filme coming-of-age de una de las escritoras m s iconoclastas de la literatura latinoamericana de hoy.

My Favorite Girlfriend was a French Bulldog is a novel told in fifteen stories, linked by the same protagonist, our narrator, who--in her own voice and channeling the voices of others--creates an unsparing, multigenerational portrait of her native Cuba. Though she feels suffocated by the island and decides to leave, hers is not just a political novel--nor just a queer novel, an immigrant novel, a feminist novel--but a deeply existential one, in which mortality, corporeality, bureaucracy, emotional and physical violence, and the American Dream define the long journey of our narrator and her beloved pet dog, who gives the book both its title and its unforgettable ending. In its daring style and structure--both playful and profound, youthful and mature - and its frank discussion of political and sexual identity, My Favorite Girlfriend was a French Bulldog marks the emergence of an original and essential new voice.

Legna Rodríguez Iglesias has quickly become one of the most celebrated Cuban poets writing today. Her intense – often confrontational – poetry refuses to conform, subverting expectations and challenging social mores. Particularly arresting is her uncomfortable focus on the human body, which she dramatises in isolation, stripping it of context, making it strange and even obscene. Alongside poems of extreme descriptive vigour, Rodríguez Iglesias irreverently skewers the hypocrisies, clichés and hierarchies of our time. This selection offers a broad survey of Rodríguez Iglesias’s work, drawing on eight previous collections in Spanish. Throughout, the poems are inflected with Cuban history and explore the tensions between the generation of the Revolution and her own. The consequences of poet’s long-term residence in Miami are forcefully brought home through poems of emigration and estrangement. The playfulness and verbal dexterity that marks Rodríguez Iglesias’s work in Spanish has been expertly brought to life in English by Abigail Parry, an award-winning poet whose debut collection Jinx was published by Bloodaxe in 2018, working in collaboration with bridge-translator and writer Serafina Vick.

"Iglesias experiments with form while showcasing the philosophical and metaphorical possibilities of poetry in this winner of the 2016 National Poetry Series Paz Prize for Poetry. Faultlessly translated by Aparicio, the individual pieces in this book-length sequence of Petrarchan sonnets are each foregrounded by brief meditations, which often read as a commentary on the work's own movement through literary tradition... The experiment in form is a philosophical argument that poetry can contribute to what have traditionally been envisioned as purely scholarly conversations. Iglesias offers a vision of the subject as divided while showcasing the beauty inherent in this fracturing; the fragment is revealed as 'the key that will open the doors.'"--Publishers Weekly"Miami Century Fox is Legna Rodr guez Iglesias's English debut, but by no means is she an emerging poet. Here's a voice that's seasoned and fierce, tender and sharp as a blade. I promise, dear readers, that you will not encounter another book quite like this, nor another poet quite like Legna Rodr guez Iglesias, ever again."--Achy Obejas, from the introduction"This smart, delightful, and seductive dual-language (Spanish and English) collection by the 2017 winner of the Paz Prize for Poetry is a loving and sly portrait of Miami and the immigrant experience in the 21st century."--Publishers Weekly; included in Fall 2017 Adult Announcements, PoetryA bilingual--English and Spanish--collection by the 2017 winner of the Paz Prize for Poetry, Miami Century Fox is a delightful, seductive read. Sonnets? Rhyme and meter? Yes, along with a delicious serving of irony and wit. This is one very smart collection of poems--a loving and sly portrait of Miami and the immigrant experience in the twenty-first century. Translated by Eduardo Aparicio. The Paz Prize for Poetry is presented by The National Poetry Series and The Center for Writing and Literature at Miami Dade College and is awarded biennially. Named in the spirit of the late Novel Prize--winning poet Octavio Paz, it honors a previously unpublished book of poetry written originally in Spanish by an American resident.