In Floating Lanterns, her eighth poetry collection, Mercedes Roff� draws from creation myths, sacred texts, philosophy and poetry that meditates upon human nature and our propensity for evil. This book brings together Buddhism, Tibetan Yoga, the Judeo-Christian Bible, the Kabbalah, Plato's Republic, T. S. Eliot, Beat poets, the oral traditions of Medieval Spain and Native North American cosmogonies.What binds these diverse materials is Roff�'s use of anaphora. Anaphora emphasizes meaning in the repetition of a word or concept. However, as each word is repeated, it lets meaning go, allowing the word to materialize in such a way that it bears sound more fully.... Through anaphora Roff� thus recalls the process of language building in the face of destruction. When catastrophes level cities, bodies and our loved ones, language too is leveled in our screams. However... poetic techniques can remind us of our subjective capacity to construct language again. They offer the possibility, or at least the hope, that a broken language, and from there the broken body, might also be remembered whole even if it is never to be recuperated. -Anna Deeny
Roffé, Mercedes: - Mercedes Roffé is one of Argentina's foremost poets, a distinguished translator, and a small press publisher. Her work has been very influential in the Spanish-speaking world. During her long and fruitful career she has published ten poetry books.Her poetry collection, La ópera fantasma (Madrid/México, Vaso Roto, 2012) was chosen one of the best books of 2012 by two major Mexican newspapers. In 2016, her Definiciones mayas (New York, Pen Press, 1999, 2000) was selected by Babelia, the Literary Supplement of El País (Spain) as one of the best one hundred books published in Spanish in the last 25 years.Some of her books have been translated and published in Italy, Quebec, England, Romania, France and the United States. Selections of her work have also appeared in renowned publications in Latin America, Spain, United States, France, Belgium, Canada, Italy, and Morocco. She has been guest reader at many international events, and a number of critical works have been written on her oeuvre. In 2001 she was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry and in 2012 a fellowship from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation (NY/Italy).Her translations from the French include Una historia incomprensible y otros relatos, a selection of narratives by the French Symbolist painter Odilon Redon (Madrid/México, Vaso Roto, 2016), and the chapbook El amor de los objetos, by Quebecois poet Martine Audet (NY, Pen Press, 2009). From the English, she has translated the poetry of Anne Waldman, Jerome Rothenberg, Leonard Schwartz, as well as Cántico de la noche y otros poemas, an anthology of Native-North American poetry.She is the founding editor of Ediciones Pen Press (www.edicionespenpress.com), a New York-based independent Spanish-language press dedicated to the publication of contemporary poetry from around the world. Roffé holds a diploma in Modern Languages from the University of Buenos Aires, and a Ph.D. from New York University. She lives in NYC.
