Homero Aridjis reads from Solar Poems
Distinguished Mexican Poet and Environmentalist Homero Aridjis is joined by his translator George McWhirter and City Lights founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti in a bilingual reading to celebrate his new collection of poetry, Solar Poems, published by City Lights Books.
A book of visionary works, Solar Poems is the first English translation of a single volume of poems by Mexico’s famed poet-activist, Homero Aridjis, exploring political consciousness as well as the psychological unconscious. Reflecting his ecological concerns and a mystical relationship with the sun, Aridjis’s poems range from the humorous to the poignant, transcending the boundary between life and death as he explores his own past and Mexico’s cultural heritage.
A poet of worldwide renown, Aridjis has received two Guggenheim Fellowships and numerous awards, including the Global 500 Award from the United Nations Environment Program on behalf of the environmental association he founded, the Group of 100, in 1987, and the Prix Roger Caillois from France for poetry and fiction in 1997. President Emeritus of International PEN and former Ambassador to the Netherlands and Switzerland, Aridjis was until recently presently Mexico’s Ambassador to UNESCO. A prolific author, Aridjis published Poemas solares (Solar Poems) in 2005.
“Homero Aridjis’s poems open a door into the light.” — Seamus Heaney
“In the poetry of Homero Ardjis there is the gaze, the pulse of the poet . . . the discontinuous time of practical and rational life and the continuity of desire and death; there is the poet’s personal truth.” — Octavio Paz
George McWhirter is a Vancouver resident since 1968 and the city’s first Poet Laureate. He was born in Belfast where he received his B.A. from Queen’s University. As Head of the University of British Columbia’s Creative Writing Department from 1983 until 1993, he earned a Killam Prize for teaching. An author of six books of poetry, two poetic works in translation, five short stories and three novels, McWhirter has been the Advisory Editor for PRISM international magazine and has edited several anthologies.
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