Oct 2010 | 4.5 x 7.25 | 54 pp | 978-1-926655-16-1 | $16.95

Curving the Line / Curvando la línea

Poetry by Carmen Leñero
Translated and with an introduction by Lorna Crozier

What I so admire about her poems–
their luminosity, their philosophical insights manifested
through the senses, their elegance, their aphoristic wit–
I pray the reader will find here.

Lorna Crozier

Curving the Line / Curvando la línea is the latest result of what has become a joyful exchange of poetry and language between two women: "artists who risk everything to write and sing the stories of their lives, no matter what the cost."

Mexican singer and writer Carmen Leñero has published twenty books in various genres. Her poetry, fiction and essays have won several literary awards and grants, including the 1998 Nacional Poetry Award Carlos Pellicer, and she has long been a member of the prestigious Sistema National de Creadores de Arte of the Mexican Ministry of Culture (CONACULTA).

She has set to music a number of her own lyrics as well as texts by contemporary and traditional poets. She has produced and recorded five CDs. And, since 1991, she has performed her poetry and songs in several cities in México, the U.S.A. and Canada. No matter what the genre, her works combine thought, emotion and voice into one whole esthetic experience.

Listen to Carmen Leñero sing in Spanish and in English from La perspectiva del gato by Lorna Crozier.

Dorothee Lang from Germany, editor of BluePrintReview has blogged about Carmen Leñero and Lorna Crozier on her Daily S-Pess. Read it here.

Cover image: © Jaime Moreno Villarreal
Author’s photograph © Ronald C. Sawyer
Translator’s photograph © Garth Martens

Some of the poems were previously published:
Carmen Leñero, "River" from Río, © 2008, Ediciones Era, México
“Moon Tales” from Lunares, (Editorial Verdehalago, Mexico City, 1994); “Rain Forest” from “Bosque de lluvia,” La grieta, (Editorial Verdehalago, Mexico City, 1994); “Sketches” from “Notas en mi cuaderno,” La grieta, (Editorial Verdehalago, Mexico City, 1994);
“The Magician’s Wink” from Birlibirloque, (Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City, 1988).

Lorna Crozier’s lastest book is the memoir Small Beneath the Sky. A Distinguished Professor at the University of Victoria, she is the recipient of several awards for poetry, including the Governor-General’s, and two honorary doctorates for her contributions to Canadian literature. She has read her poetry at literary festivals around the world. In 2009 Trilce Ediciones in Mexico City published a collection of her poems translated into Spanish by Carmen Leñero. She lives on Vancouver Island with poet Patrick Lane and two fine cats.