In 1982, the University of Kentucky Press published Andrew Debicki's Poetry of Discovery, a mind-opener of a book and one that showed a group of young scholars and graduate students in the United States how to reread poems with a host of fresh interpretative strategies. Indeed, in "What Andy Taught Me," a short, introductory poem chosen by Cecile West-Settle and Sylvia Sherno, the editors of this festschrift, Sara Martin writes that Andy taught us to "look again" at a poem and that there is no "one answer" to what it means; he encouraged us to "Say what you see. / There will be more than one way" (9). Following this, we are treated to Angel Gonzalez's words of praise in an introduction his unique talent as a professional academic and as a human being.
There are eleven essays: four on male, six on female poets, and a final one on recent schools in Spanish poetry. The order of presentation is chronological: based on the birth date of the poet. Santiago Daydi Tolson studies Vincente Aleixandre; Salvador Jimenez Fajardo studies Jose Moreno Villa; Judith Nantell studies Francisco Brines and Linda Metzler, Jose Angel Valente. With respect to Spain's women poets, we have Doug Benson on Gloria Fuertes, Anita hart on Maria Victoria Atencia, Marta LaFollette on Ana Rossetti, Mike Mudrovic on Dionisia Garcia, and Jill Roberts on Ana Maria Moix. Marge Persin then studies numerous contemporary women poets, and the homage is brought to a fitting conclusion with Jonathan Mayhew's observations on three poetic trends in Spain today.
Daydi Tolson, noting that Aleixandre was blind and published no poetry during the last decade of his life, proceeds to study "visionary" poetry in Aleixandre and a cluster of disparate poets from South America and Europe. Fajardo Jimenez reflects on autobiography and self-knowledge and then turns his attention to exile and Jose Moreno Villa, for whose "Converso con vosotros," is the first poem Moreno Villa wrote in exile, he provides a philosophically grounded, in-depth analysis. Nantell discusses the existential conflict in Brines before turning her attention to La ultima costa (1995) which, despite its title, is an affirmation of life's intense vitality, a journey of "being toward death" (63), an embracing of life in order to live. "a virbrant canticle to life" (71). Metzler studies the poeticity of poetry in specific poems from Jose Angel Valente's La memoria y los signos (1960-65), El fulgor (1984) and the post-humous Fragmentos de un libro futuro (2000). Drawing on a very impressive range of studies of sound in poetry, Metzler convincingly analyzes Valente's enigmatic texts and offers a brilliant demonstration of how sound in all its poetic manifestations leads Valente toward a meeting with "otherness" (101) - an experience of union that alludes our rational understanding.
With respect to poetry written by women, Benson provides us with a rigorously intellectual reader-response to several poems from Fuerte's Mujer de verso en pecho (1995); he demonstrates how complex are Fuerte's ostensibly simple texts in their celebration of "the democratic, liberating nature of language and its ability to reveal unexpected facets of that same reality" (81). Hart studies Maria Victoria Atencia's overlooked A orillas del Ems (written in 1985, pub. 1997), in which Atencia reflects on a handful of very old photographs taken in the German village of Telgate. (The book was a gift to the poet by her son who was studying in Germany). Hart draws inspiration from Barthes's theories as she explains Atencia's meditations on adulthood and youth. LaFollette then contributes a persuasive study of the cultural and philosophical context of six poems from Rossetti's Punto umbrio (1995) to which LaFollette adds enlightening comments on the novel Mentiras de papel (1994). LaFollette's cleverly analyzes Rossetti's concerns, strategies, and achievements; she also explains pertinent biography to demonstrate that these texts from the mid-1990s brought the speaker to a "clever-eyed" contemplation of the human condition" (158). Mudrovic chooses to bring our attention to the work of Dionisia Garcia, and in particular he focuses on how space creates an immanent reality in three poems in which an arch is the focal point of the poetic text. These poems appeared in Lugares de paseo (1999) and Mudrovic deserves our appreciation for reevaluating Dionisia Garcia who published her first book in 1976.
This is a collection that succeeds in stimulating our understanding of well-known figures while also introducing us to overlooked poets and new books of poems. As such, it is a most fitting compliment to the innovative criticism, indefatigable spirit and inspirational mentorship for which Andrew P. Debicki will always be remembered.
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