Self-Portrait in the Zone of Silence, by the renowned Mexican writer
Homero Aridjis, is a brilliant collection of poems written in and for
the new century*.* Aridjis seeks spiritual transformation through
encounters with mythical animals, family ghosts, migrant workers,
Mexico's oppressed, female saints, other writers (such as Jorge Luis
Borges and Philip Lamantia), and naked angels in the metro. We find
tributes to Goya and Heraclitus, denunciations of drug traffickers and
political figureheads, and unforgettable imaginary landscapes. As
Aridjis himself writes: "a poem is like a door / we've never passed
through..." And now past eighty, Aridjis reflects on the past and
ponders the future. "Surrounded by light and the warbling of birds," he
writes, "I live in a state of poetry, because for me, being and making
poetry are the same."