FROM NEZA YORK TO NEW YORK

A bilingual anthology of the poetry of Mexico City and New York City

Despite the birth of cyberspace, New York City is a place where the coordinates of the global artistic community physically intersect. The city of Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs, Vasconcelos, de la Cabada and many others is still alive even with its rapid gentrification.

For example, thanks to people like Rosalind Resnick, who generously hosts in her townhouse of Greenwich Village, a poetry group named “The Poetry Table,” the literary life is nurtured within the larger setting of the City. 

Through the weekly meetings of this group I spent a year exchanging ideas, listening to, writing and reading poems, both in Spanish and English. However, with the support of my friends from years ago – magnificent poets whom I meet every time I travel to Mexico City – I have kept myself in close contact with my native language, as well as with the literary facts of the city where I grew up. Very soon from that creative interaction among poets of both cities came the idea for this anthology.

From Neza York to New York is an attempt to open a megaphone for the work of twenty-five writers from Mexico City and New York City. Twenty-five paths filled with intuitions and genuine literary findings. It honors those who preceded us in this kind of cultural calling, inspired by the geographic proximity of our countries and by our two increasingly connected cities.

This volume includes samples of many kinds of poetry. It is not generational or an anthology of one specific movement. It is a meet-up of present-day artists: incidental, random and even chaotic, if you will, but as rich as the exact words in a poem.

This book was published in Mexico City by Cofradía de Coyotes, directed by Eduardo Villegas Guevara. In the cover it shows a beautiful artwork by Jack Tricarico, and in the inside it has two magnificent digital art pieces by the Mexican artist Alonso Venegas.

In the pages of this anthology the poems are presented in their original languages with their respective translations into English or Spanish, as in a mirror. Photographs and bios of the authors are also included. 

The New York City writers included in this anthology are: Mary Askin-Jencsik, Lord Bison, Stephen Bluestone, Hannah Cerasoli, Claire Fitzpatrick, Arthur Gatti, Gordon Gilbert, Robert Givens, Evie Ivy, Rosalind Resnick, Griselda Steiner and Jack Tricarico.

From Mexico City: Félix Cardoso, Raúl Casamadrid, Leopoldo González, María Ángeles Juárez Téllez, Roberto Mendoza Ayala, Víctor M. Navarro, Alejandro Reyes Juárez, Iliana Rodríguez, Rolando Rosas Galicia, Arturo Trejo Villafuerte, Aura María Vidales, Guadalupe Vidales and Eduardo Villegas Guevara.

I want to thank my friend, poet and professor emeritus Stephen Bluestone, for the time he spent with me discussing my translations into English and reviewing the final proofs of this book. He helped me understand much about New York City and its poetry, in particular, and North America in general. 

I also want to thank the talented writers Art Gatti, Gordon Gilbert and Evie Ivy, who gave me numerous hints for the equivalences of meanings in both languages. They reviewed my English translations and made many helpful suggestions.

After countless vicissitudes unworthy of the treaty of free transit of goods between Mexico and the United States, copies of this edition -which is already circulating in some bookstores in Mexico City-, have finally arrived to New York City. From this same week they can be requested from the authors themselves, and soon in local bookstores, or can be requested directly by e-mail: coyotemayor@cofradiadecoyotes.com