The Azure Cloister - Thirty-Five Poems

New translations of poems by prominent Peruvian poet Carlos German Belli.

This selection of poems by internationally renowned Peruvian poet Carlos German Belli tempers a dark, ironic vision of worldly injustice with the red midnight sun of hope. Belli’s contemplative verses express faith in language, in bodily joy, and in artistic form. These thirty-five poems explore public and domestic spaces of confinement and freedom, from paralysis to the ease of a bird in its azure cloister.

Translations by Karl Maurer retain Belli’s original meter, follow his complex syntax, and meet the challenges of his poetic language, which ranges from colloquial Peruvian slang to the ironic use of seventeenth-century Spanish. This volume also includes notes and reflections on Belli and on the art of translation. Beyond introducing American readers to a major presence in world poetry, The Azure Cloister offers a fresh approach to the translation of contemporary verse in Spanish in this bilingual edition.