The poet persists, a constant presence that feels like the most demanding labor and, at the same time, the most soul-satisfying reward. A poet who claims to stop writing may be truthfully wavering, yet truth itself remains uncertain. The essence of poetry holds the creator and yields to the poem, a dynamic described as poetry existing in everything while recognizing that even poetry can be the exception. The idea endures that being a poet is a condition rather than a job, a figure who seeks to understand the world and in that search, abstraction deepens. Poetry becomes the thread weaving through all things, suggesting that even the ordinary can become lyrical when examined with a poet’s eye.
The book titled The Animal I Live By, originally part of a noted poetry collection, opens with a quiet door left ajar after a long period of silence. It invites readers into a tribute to the art of verse, beginning with a meditation on the sea and memory where the sea or oblivion answers like a bird crossing the soul, a refrain that traverses the mind and moment. The tone sets a contrast between monumental stillness and the delicate presence of color and light, with night stubbornly seeking the familiar and still offering new angles of perception like a rose within a shifting sky.
The era of confinement and its repercussions is felt throughout the poems, infusing the work with a sense of fevered longing and the strange, almost animal-like creatures of verse that emerged during isolation. The collection presents a tapestry where desire and melancholy mingle, yet threads of hope glimmer at intervals like guiding beacons. A standout moment is the poem Detrás de los colores, which speaks in a restrained register about discovering the other person beyond appearance and the simple, candid truth of a lover hidden behind colors. The lines carry a quiet accusation and a celebration of everyday life, like stamps pressed on an old tin can, a tactile memory made visible. Memory itself emerges as a guiding force, a force that recalls and reshapes experience. In the meditation Why Memory, the speaker reflects on remembrance that refuses to fade, describing how memories burst like soap bubbles when touched by oblivion, and how light, distance, fog, and storm can all be navigated with a patient, almost stubborn, bright persistence.
The author behind the work is a scholar of Spanish literature who has produced a substantial body of poetry, nonfiction, and translations. The bibliography includes early collections that gained significant recognition, as well as later volumes that expanded into novels and children’s literature. The author has explored a wide range of themes, from the intimate to the biographical, and has received various recognitions for essays, critiques, and biographical works. The ongoing engagement with literary creation continues in an academic setting, with teaching and research at a university connected to a renowned regional literary figure. Since years ago, the author has directed a corporate chair devoted to measuring the relationship between poetry and life.
The Animal I Live In Marked a journey toward the center of the animal that lends its name to the book. Structured in four sections, this work could have carried different titles, yet the presence endured as a guiding force that held everything together. If another name were considered, it might translate the idea that love acts as a driving engine or an eternal chorus of a thousand nights. Longtime readers have welcomed this latest chapter with a sense of shared anticipation, knowing that the poet has paused to listen, to observe, and to shape what is happening around them. The closing lines speak directly to the reader with a simple invitation: listen closely. Time here is a party on days filled with writing, a suggestion that return and renewal are part of the same rhythm. The poet never truly leaves; rather, the figure returns with renewed vigor and a softened, wiser gaze.