We ran into some difficulties so are running late. Because of this, we’ll be cutting the vote short by a day so just 4 days to vote to ensure we can announce the book in time to read by Nov. 1.
Before we get to the vote, I want to thank club member Elke Richelsen who suggested a book this month. We usually get a wide number of suggestions, but it looks like Peruvian books were difficult to find or haven’t been widely read as we only received 1 suggestion. Yay, Elke!
I also wanted to share an interesting tidbit from Cornell University about Martín Adán (a founder of Peruvian poetry & the best of the 1920s Latin American avant garde) & Allen Ginsberg (the US beatnik poet). “Adán’s aristocratic family having fallen into ruin, set him out on a Bohemian journey through shady bars & hotels in Lima where he wrote his poems on napkins, tablecloths, & unfolded cigarette packs in a never-ending traumatic search for identity. Adán’s alcoholism & inner fragmentation led to a tormented existence alternating between periods in a psychiatric hospital, drinking bouts, & Hermetic enclosure in which he found refuge in his poetry. His encounter with Ginsberg in a Lima bar in the 1960s illustrates Adán’s disarray. Upon seeing each other, they started rounds of insults. Adán asked Ginsberg, ‘Why do you write such bullshit?’ Ginsberg answered, ‘At least I bathe everyday & my feet do not stink!’ Soon thereafter, Ginsberg wrote the following poem about Adán in his book Reality Sandwiches.”
“To an Old Poet in Peru
Because we met at dusk
Under the shadow of the railroad station
clock
While my shade was visiting Lima
And your ghost was dying in Lima
old face needing a shave
And my young beard sprouted
magnificent as the dead hair
in the sands of Chancay
Because I mistakenly thought you were
melancholy
Saluting your 60 year old feet
which smell of the death
of spiders on the pavement
And you saluted my eyes
with your anisetto voice
Mistakenly thinking I was genial
for a youth
(my rock and roll is the motion of an
angel flying in a modern city)
(your obscure shuffle is the motion
of a seraphim that has lost
its wings)
I kiss you on your fat cheek (once more tomorrow
Under the stupendous Desamparados clock)
Before I go to my death in an airplane crash
in North America (long ago)
And you go to your heart-attack on an indifferent
street in South America
(Both surrounded by screaming
communists with flowers
in their ass)
—you much sooner than I—
or on a long night alone in a room
in the old hotel of the world
watching a black door
. . . surrounded by scraps of paper”
Such an interesting story & gripping poem—especially now that we know the background for it.
Now onto the vote.
THE VOTING
You can vote from now until Sat., Oct. 31 11:30PM on which book you’d like the club to read next. (That's NYC time. See this converted to your local time below.)
To participate:
1. Review the books.
2. Then, click here to vote.
We'll publish the anonymous results afterwards so you can get the book in advance.