The Vase Threatens to Speak

The Vase Threatens to Speak is a groundbreaking book, not only for its incisive treatment of language, as it shifts between verse and prose poetry, but also for achieving a complex transparency. This work is a battle against the darkness and blindness found in certain strands of contemporary Spanish-language poetry. Within its pages, cities, crows, musicians, and painters endure the undying image of the author's deceased daughter. Miguel Ángel Zapata offers us a poetry of transparency-verse that flows like the pulse connecting day and night, or like water blessing a beloved body. Octavio Paz once noted that there are poets whose writing remains virtually unchanged from one work to another, yet achieves a rare perfection. Zapata knows how to find beauty in his obsessions, and it is precisely what brings him closer to wisdom. It is a wisdom that emerges with deceptive spontaneity, unforced and understated-and his poetry is all the more compelling for it. It is a small miracle that, as the reader will discover, requires nothing more than the convergence of silence and a voice.