The Romantic Dogs
Listed as a "2009 Indie Next List Poetry Top Ten" book by the American Booksellers Association: Roberto Bolaño as he saw himself, in his own first calling as a poet.\ Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003) has caught on like a house on fire, and The Romantic Dogs, a bilingual collection of forty-four poems, offers American readers their first chance to encounter this literary phenomenon as a poet: his own first and strongest literary persona. These poems, wide-ranging in forms and length, have appeared...
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Listed as a "2009 Indie Next List Poetry Top Ten" book by the American Booksellers Association: Roberto Bolaño as he saw himself, in his own first calling as a poet.Publishers WeeklyThe Savage Detectives, the best-known novel by the Chilean-born Bolaño (1953-2003) recently found spectacular success across the English-speaking world, bringing much attention to his other work. Now comes a very competently rendered bilingual selection of his fiery, if sometimes uncontrolled, verse. Bolaño began as a poet, and some of the work here seems to have come from an extraordinarily young man: a record of stormy, untamed teen emotion-the depths of despair ("From these nightmares I'll retain only/ these poor houses") or the heights of sexual adventures. Bolaño moves easily into a blend of surrealism and populism, with in-your-face gestures learned perhaps from Pablo Neruda, as when he watches "a trail of nurses and a trail of scorpions" wending their ways home. Other poems are closely tied to The Savage Detectives: Bolaño's dreamt motorcycle journey in "The Donkey," mirroring the life of the real poet Mario Santiago, will send readers back to the fictionalized portrayals of Bolaño and Santiago (Arturo and Ulises) in the novel. Bolaño the poet's "deliberate immaturity/ And splendors glimpsed on another planet" can delight: they echo his brilliant but out-of-control authorial persona, with its high-speed, self-conscious verbal play, and those echoes will be more than enough to lead fans of his prose straight to his verse. (Nov.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
\ American Book ReviewWe are now given the opportunity to witness Bolaño's mastery of verse. The collection is striking, truly exceptional work.— Joseph D. Haske\ \ \ \ \ Boston PhoenixGrab his poetry collection when you pick up 2666.— Barbara Hoffert\ \ \ Boston ReviewThey radiate the audacity of intellect, as well as the cruelty of vision, that have won their author a devoted following.— Mara Pastor\ \ \ \ \ MultiCultural ReviewPowerful imagery of loneliness, love, and the contemplative moments of life and death in his cosmopolitan world.— Alva V. Cellini\ \ \ \ \ RALPH MagazineThe translations are superb—almost all contain a gem.— A. W. Allworthy\ \ \ \ \ The Harvard Book ReviewHis fiction and poetry do not merely reflect his life...they constitute a single work of art.— Emily Chertoff\ \ \ \ \ The New York Review of BooksThe first gathering in English of Bolaño's wonderfully unreserved poems.— Sarah Kerr\ \ \ \ \ Publishers WeeklyThe Savage Detectives, the best-known novel by the Chilean-born Bolaño (1953-2003) recently found spectacular success across the English-speaking world, bringing much attention to his other work. Now comes a very competently rendered bilingual selection of his fiery, if sometimes uncontrolled, verse. Bolaño began as a poet, and some of the work here seems to have come from an extraordinarily young man: a record of stormy, untamed teen emotion-the depths of despair ("From these nightmares I'll retain only/ these poor houses") or the heights of sexual adventures. Bolaño moves easily into a blend of surrealism and populism, with in-your-face gestures learned perhaps from Pablo Neruda, as when he watches "a trail of nurses and a trail of scorpions" wending their ways home. Other poems are closely tied to The Savage Detectives: Bolaño's dreamt motorcycle journey in "The Donkey," mirroring the life of the real poet Mario Santiago, will send readers back to the fictionalized portrayals of Bolaño and Santiago (Arturo and Ulises) in the novel. Bolaño the poet's "deliberate immaturity/ And splendors glimpsed on another planet" can delight: they echo his brilliant but out-of-control authorial persona, with its high-speed, self-conscious verbal play, and those echoes will be more than enough to lead fans of his prose straight to his verse. (Nov.)\ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalWith everyone jumping on BolaA±o's bandwagon and 2666 proving to be one of the biggest novels of last year, it's worth remembering that BolaA±o started out as a poet and that poets figure largely in his narrative works. Written early in the author's career but not collected until 2000, these short, piercing poems are full of youthful edginess and swagger-"I'm here, I said, with los perros romAnticos/ and here I'm going to stay." Not just good for understanding the fiction but a nice, healthy slap in the face on its own. (LJ10/1/08)\ \ —Barbara Hoffert\ \
