Richard Gwyn

Poems for staying at home (Day 39)

  In these dark times many people are unable to bury their dead, or even attend to their dying relatives. Fabio Morábito’s devastating poem captures the irony of grief and loss through the eyes of one mourner, whose… Read More

Poems for staying at home (Day 38)

This great and terrible poem of witness is now ten years old. The poem has become a symbol of resistance to state and narco gang violence and has in turn brought death threats to its author, María Rivera…. Read More

Poems for staying at home (Day 32)

  Today’s poem: a perfect study in stillness, by the Mexican poet Coral Bracho.   Goats In the whiteness and its nucleus of light the goats stand stock-still. Gently the rock holds them in its palm; like a… Read More

Poems for staying at home (Day 31)

  As we find ourselves in June, two bumblebees, observed by the Mexican poet Pura López Colomé, hover over ‘rose coloured leaves / from a flower that is not a rose.’   And the Anthurium, Undaunted Two bumblebees… Read More

Poems for staying at home (Day 30)

  After the weekend, this cow rummages through the debris left by the visiting humans; the remains of campfires, plastic carrier bags, bottles and beer cans. We know, we’ve seen it. Poor cow.   Fabio Morábito reminds us of… Read More

Poems for staying at home (Day 13)

    Today’s poem concerns a house, any house – though this one happens to be in Mexico – in which someone is born, but no longer lives. We all have a house to which we return in… Read More

Poems for staying at home (Day 3)

  Today’s poem for staying at home is ‘Time of Crisis’, by the Mexican poet Fabio Morábito. Morabito’s poetry, infused with a wry and occasionally coruscating humour, is especially suited to the weird times we live in. This… Read More

The unicorns and the ghost in the wall

  I try to imagine what they are thinking, and realise that not even they know this; that perhaps they are not capable of thought. Either that, or their thoughts are concerned with subjects so remote from anything… Read More

Mexican history, pasties, & the fall of Europe

  Perhaps nowhere on earth is the contiguity of past and present more strikingly evident than in Mexico. An ancient wall, cracked from an earthquake, stands before a pair of ascending high rise towers, from one of which… Read More

Jaguars, snakes, rabbits

If you travel, Blanco thinks, if you just travel, go from place to place, walk around, you should never get bored and you should never lack for things to do or write about, if this happens to be… Read More

Bolaño and criticism

My last night in Mexico, after a quiet dinner with a friend, I dreamed a strange and involved kind of dream that, when I awoke, left an aftereffect of mystery and sadness. Bolaño was there; my friend also… Read More

Books and guns in Guadalajara

One of the great pleasures of the Guadalajara Feria del Libro is the spirit of festivity and celebration. Being a Latin affair, the partying is intense and persistent. Fortunately for his readers, Blanco is a restrained sort of… Read More