Olga Orozco (Argentina)
1920-1999
Born in Toay, a city near Buenos Aires, in 1920, Olga Orozco began writing a
poetry associated with Argentine Surrealists such as Olivero Girondo [PIP
Volume 4], Enrique Molina and Alejandra Pizarnik. Her themes were many, but
a search for God in a fallen world dominated her poetry. She also had close
affinities to the Spanish Nobel Prize-winning poet Vicente Aleixandre [PIP
Volume 4], and often traveled to Brazil and Europe.
Her
first book of poetry was Desde lejos (1946), but it is her
second book, Las muertes (1952), centering on the deaths of
various historical and imaginary figures, including the author herself, that
brought her to greater attention. That book was followed with Los juegos
peligrosos in 1962, La oscuridad es otro sol (1967), and
numerous others over the next decades. She published nine major collections of
poetry before her death, as well as collections of short stories and essays.
As translator Mary Crow has written of Orozco: “Olga Orozco was one of the most obsessive of contemporary poets, returning again and again to certain themes, images, and words, and mulling over the significance of her experience as if she were a Kabbalist reading the book of life and giving us her interpretations. Embedded in these interpretations we discover many events from Orozco’s life even though her poems appear focused on a cosmic rather than a human realm. Simply put, Orozco was a thoroughly human poet in her suffering and her passionate complaints and celebrations.”
Orozco
died in 1999.
BOOKS OF POETRY
Desde lejos (Buenos Aires: Losada, 1946); Las muertes (Buenos
Aires: Losada, 1952); Los juegos peligrosos (Buenos Aires:
Losada, 1962); Museo salvaje (Buenos Aires: Losada,
1974); Veintinueve poemas (Caracas: Monte Ávila, 1975); Cantos
a Berenice (Buenos Aires: Sudameriacana, 1977); Mutaciones de
la realidad (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1979; reprinted (Madrid:
Adonais, 1992); Obra poética (Buenos Aires: Corregidor,
1979); Páginas de Olga Orozco (Buenos Aires: Celtia,
1984); La noche a la deriva (México: Fondo de Cultura
Económica, 1984); reprinted (Córdoba: Alción, 1995); En el revés del
cielo (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1987); Con esta boca, en
este mundo (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1994); Antología
poética (Madrid: Instituto de Cooperación Iberoamericana,
1985)/(Buenos Aires: Fondo Nacional de las Artes, 1996).
ENGLISH LANGUAGE TRANSLATIONS
Engravings Torn from Insomnia: Selected Poems, trans. by Mary Crow
(Rochester, New York: Boa Editions, 2002).
For a selection of poems by Orozco, go here: https://poets.org/poem/it-comes-every-storm
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