Mexican poet, teacher and translator Coral Bracho was born in Mexico City in 1951. She has published several books, two in English thanks to the brilliant poet-translator Forrest Gander, who has put this composite volume together, the first time Bracho has been extensively published in the UK. In Mexico she is a formidable presence and influence, one of the most significant writers since Octavio Paz. Her wide-lined, semantically rich poems may remind us of Jorie Graham's experimental manner. 'Her diction spills out along ceaselessly shifting beds of sound,' says her translator. Her early poems 'make sense first as music, and music propels them'. It Must Be a Misunderstanding is her most personal collection of poems, treating her mother's Alzheimer's and death. She finds tenderness, humour, grace, and even a kind of bravery in the interactions of people who encounter each other in a 'Memory Care' facility. In the parallel worlds of residents, a wall might be seen as a man's starched suit, shadows are real, quiet is strafed with stutters of speech. Things exist and don't exist at one and the same time. 'As they do,' we are tempted to say in response to the lavish tenderness and empathy of the poems. Bracho gradually reveals her mother's inimitably strong, quirky nature.
Mexican poet and translator Coral Bracho was born in Mexico City, where she still lives and teaches. She is the author of several collections of poetry, including Ese espacio, ese jardín (2003) which won the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize. Her poetry was translated for the Poetry Translation Center’s 2005 World Poets’ Tour by Tom Boll and poet Katherine Pierpoint. Bracho’s honors include the Aguacalientes National Poetry Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Forrest Gander, a writer and translator with degrees in geology and literature, was born in the Mojave Desert and lives in California. Gander is the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize and the Best Translated Book Award.
* The first time Bracho - one of the most significant Mexican writers since Octavio Paz - has been extensively published in the UK.
* Bracho’s most personal and emotionally expressive collection of poems to date.
* Dedicated to her mother who died of complications from Alzheimer’s, these poems find humor, tenderness and joy in her mother’s struggle while gradually revealing her inimitably strong, quirky character.
* Bracho’s layered, wide-lined poetry has been compared to Jorie Graham’s, and her influence on Mexican poetry compared to John Ashbery’s influence on American verse.
* Translated by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet-translator Forrest Gander.
