What's In A Name - Ana Luisa Amaral
What's In A Name - Ana Luisa Amaral
With the elliptical looping of a butterfly alighting on ones sleeve, the poems of Ana Lui´sa Amaral arrive as small hypnotic miracles. Spare and beautiful in a way reminiscent both of Szymborska and of Emily Dickinson (it comes as no surprise that Amaral is the leading Portuguese translator of Dickinson), these poemsin Margaret Jull Costas gorgeous English versionsseamlessly interweave the everyday with the dreamlike and ask Whats in a name?How solid is a name if answered to, Amaral answers, but like the Roseno, like its perfume: ungovernable. Free. There is much freedom within Amarals poetry, room for mysteries to multiply, and yet her beautiful lines are as clear as water: And that time of smiles Which does, incidentally, really exist, I swear, as does the fire and the invisible sea, which with nothing will agree