In this Book
- The Alphabet in the Park: Selected Poems
- Book
- 2012
- Published by: Wesleyan University Press
- Series: Wesleyan Poetry in Translation
This is the first book published in English by of the work of Brazilian poet Adélia Prado. Incorporating poems published over the past fifteen years, The Alphabet in the Park is a book of passion and intelligence, wit and instinct. These are poems about human concerns, especially those of women, about living in one's body and out of it, about the physical but also the spiritual and the imaginative life. Prado also writes about ordinary matters; she insists that the human experience is both mystical and carnal. To Prado these are not contradictory: "It's the soul that's erotic," she writes.
As Ellen Watson says in her introduction, "Adélia Prados poetry is a poetry of abundance. These poems overflow with the humble, grand, various stuff of daily life – necklaces, bicycles, fish; saints and prostitutes and presidents; innumerable chickens and musical instruments…And, seemingly at every turn, there is food." But also, an abundance of dark things, cancer, death, greed. These are poems of appetite, all kinds.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- pp. vii-xiv
- Baggage: 1976
- Dysrhythmia
- p. 3
- Before Names
- p. 7
- Praise for a Color
- p. 12
- Heart's Desire
- p. 16
- At Customs
- p. 19
- The Headlong Heart: 1977
- Concerted Effort
- pp. 25-26
- A Good Cause
- pp. 31-32
- A Fast One
- p. 33
- Absence of Poetry
- p. 34
- Young Girl in Bed
- pp. 36-37
- The Black Umbrella
- p. 38
- Neighborhood
- p. 42
- Denouement
- p. 44
- Land of the Holy Cross 1981
- The Alphabet in the Park
- pp. 47-48
- Land of the Holy Cross
- pp. 51-52
- Love in the Ether
- p. 57
- Consecration
- pp. 58-59
- Professional Mourner
- p. 61