Nothing is Lost: Selected Poems by Jordi Doce, trans. by Lawrence Schimel
"This volume brings together poems from six collections originally published between 1990 and 2011. I have divided the selection into five sections that correspond, broadly, to the separate stages in which they were written. The final and briefest one includes five fragments from Perros en la playa[Dogs on the Beach], a miscellany of prose, poetry and aphorisms that I published in early 2011.
In my opinion, a Selected should not solely contain poems that have been often anthologised or singled out for praise by critics and readers. It should give a more or less accurate view of the variety and development of one’s output over the years. Therefore, I have not shied away from including some youthful pieces or the odd experiment—not to mention poems for which one feels an immoderate fondness." —Jordi Doce
“Jordi Doce is one of the three or four living European poets whose work I most treasure. He brings all his faculties to the rich task of being; his voice inhabits the names, not just with wonder, but with new possibilities; like Machado, on the one hand, and Montale, on the other, he is a companion, not a guide, always present with us, never merely pointing what he thinks might be the way.” —John Burnside
"I celebrate this selection of poems in English translation by the remarkably gifted and productive poet, Jordi Doce. His meditative lyrics are contemporary exemplars of a profound strand in the braided poetic traditions of Spain—I think of Unamuno, Antonio Machado, Luis Cernuda. But they are more than that. In part, it may also be his wide reading in English poetry and the excellence of his own translations of English poets that seem to have opened his way for him. […] It’s a book of philosophical solitude, yet at the same time it’s a celebration of friends and companions. Time, thought, feeling, and meaning, are shown in the ceaselessness of their motion—their flowing. Lawrence Schimel’s translations, too, are fluent." —Reginald Gibbons
"Jordi Doce has opened up a space in Spanish poetry for understanding an incomprehensible existence. His way of thinking, unbound by preconceptions, takes its strength from its encounter with doubt. The adventure is unsettling, but also strangely calming in its beauty." —Antonio Gamoneda
"Poems with a clear outline, always tensely poised between action and contemplation in a way that makes it possible for human consciousness to read both self and world." —Andrés Sánchez Robayna
"Doce’s powers of observation, his permanent state of wonder at the world, are remarkable, together with an intelligence that is constantly sharpened by what it sees." —Álvaro Valverde
"Jordi Doce is one of the most complete men of letters of my generation. His is a poetry where the cool flow of meditation and feeling of wonder at the world go hand in hand with language which is both calm and impetuous." —Eduardo Moga
"A notable trait of his work is his rich and polyhedric “vision in movement,” which allows him to be there, living with, and in, the present. This explains why he has become one of the most unique and distinctive poets of his generation." —Vicente Luis Mora, from the 'Foreword'.
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