Victor Teran – författare

The Spines of Love collects work from Víctor Terán’s poetic oeuvre for the first time in a trilingual edition: in their original Isthmus Zapotec (an endangered indigenous Mexican language) and in David Shook’s Spanish and English translations. Sensual and intricately wrought, these poems take readers on an emotional journey through love and loss with a searing lyricism entirely Terán’s own. His lover’s body is a city where the poet can “give perfect directions,” her name slips over his tongue “like a fish between the hands / of a fisherman,” and when she leaves him it’s with memories like “an ocean of incessant fish.”

The Spines of Love stands for a simple but bracing truth: Yes, love can hurt, but even after it departs, it strengthens us.

Víctor Terán has been described as the most 'personal' poet of the Zapotec Isthmus of Oaxaca, Mexico. His poems, highly lyrical and imagistic, explore two deep passions: the electricity that passes between bodies in love, and Terán's fierce devotion to the Indigenous land and language of his birth.

This carefully curated selection of poems, drawing from the whole of Terán’s poetic oeuvre, is translated into English by his long-time translator and interlocutor, the poet Shook, working from Spanish bridge-translations made by the author.

There is an afterword by Leo Boix.

Living in Language brings together reflections on the craft and purpose of poetry, by 21 leading poets from around the world. The lyric essays, fragments, letters and new poems in this groundbreaking anthology shed light on topics as diverse and vital as writing the body, writing in exile, writing as witness, writing as a shamanic act, grappling with traditional forms, discovering your own voice, and even translation and self-translation. This is an essential resource for anyone looking to broaden their horizons and engage with the cutting edge of poetry as it is practised, around the world, in the 21st century.