Materia Prima

Materia Prima is the first English-language collection of Amanda Berenguer''s poetry. A key contributor to Uruguay''s famed literary Generación del ''45, Berenguer (1921-2010) stands among the most important post-World War II poets of Latin America, along with her now-legendary compatriot Marosa di Giorgio. Berenguer’s poetry, stylistically and conceptually varied, ranges from classic, measured lyric to Dickinson-inspired gnomic utterance; from metaphysical and erotic rhetorical effusion to condensed and radically concrete experiment; from seemingly apolitical languor to pointed ideological dissent.

The poems included in this edition span a large portion of Berenguer''s career and are taken from seven of her books — Materia Prima (1966), Composición de Lugar (1976), Identidad de ciertas frutas (1983), La dama de Elche (1985), La botella verde (1995), La cuidadora del fuego (2010) — and from a book of selected poems from 1986-1984, Con el tigre entre las cosas (2002). A special section of this edition is dedicated to her visual poems, including pieces that appeared in magazines in the early 1970s.

This collection is edited by Kristin Dykstra and Kent Johnson, with translations by Gillian Brassil, Anna Deeny Morales, Mónica de la Torre, Kristin Dykstra, Kent Johnson, Urayoán Noel, Jeannine Marie Pitas, and Alex Verdolini.

The volume also includes an introduction by Roberto Echavarren and an interview conducted by Silvia Guerra.