The foremost maître à penser in recent Latin American poetry.
Mirko Lauer
Language Is a Revolver for Two
Mario Montalbetti
Translated by Clare Sullivan
December 2018
Language Is a Revolver for Two revolves around the premise that within an economy of supply and demand (such as language) the supply never affects love. Thus, coins and tramways, imaginary Inca poets, and black olives are examined in order to intervene in such a framework and, ultimately, to find something outside of it.
About the Author
Mario Montalbetti (Lima, Peru, 1953). PhD in Linguistics from MIT. He has taught linguistics at Cornell, UCLA and The University of Arizona. Currently, he is Professor of Linguistics at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. He has published 9 books of poems, the first one Perro Negro (Arybalo) in 1978, the last one Simio meditando (Mangos de hacha) in 2016. His poetry has been published in Mexico (by Aldus) and Spain (Liliputienses). Excerpts of his work have been published in Ecuador (Ruido Blanco) and Argentina (Mansalva). He has also published an essay on language and sense (Cajas, Fondo Editorial PUCP), a collection of essays on language and culture (Cualquier hombre es una isla, Fondo de Cultura Económica) and a study on a poem by Blanca Varela (El más crudo invierno, Fondo de Cultura Económica). He is a member of the Editing Committee of Hueso Húmero, a journal of arts and letters published in Lima, Perú.
Praise
His texts are a constant invitation to leave language behind & discover there is nothing to replace it. What takes the place of that vacuum? Basically lessons on life we call poetry. But he is not so sure. Mario Montalbetti is the foremost maître à penser in recent Latin American poetry, and his proposal about poetry as a form of knowledge is becoming increasingly popular worldwide.
Mirko Lauer, Hueso Húmero Magazine
The true Mario of Peruvian letters—Mario Montalbetti is an indispensable poet and thinker of our time. English-speaking readers: you´re in for a roller-coaster treat. Profound and witty, contemporary to the core, Montalbetti´s poetry and essays relentlessly investigate what is happening to language in the here and now of our fears and dilemmas, our joys, our very own darkness. The poem is always more important than the poet, claims this linguist and professor. The poet should be erased by the poem. Before that happens, or as it happens, read Clare Sullivan's pristine translation of these selected poems, hopefully the first of many to come.
Cristina Rivera Garza
About the Translator
Clare Sullivan is an Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of Louisville, where she teaches poetry and translation. She received a 2010 NEA Translation Grant to work with Natalia Toledo’s poetry. The resulting work, The Black Flower and Other Zapotec Poems (Phoneme Media), was short-listed for the Best Translated Book Award. Her translation of Alejandro Tarrab’s Litane was published by Cardboard House Press in 2017, and her translation of Mario Montalbetti’s Language Is a Revolver for Two was published by UDP.
In the News
Publication Details
ISBN: 978-1-946433-17-6
Chapbook
staple-bound. 32 pp, 5.25 x 8.25 in
Publication Date: December 01 2018
Distribution: Asterism Books (US)
Series: Señal #7