[From Aztec Sorcerers in Seventeenth Century Mexico: The Treatise on Superstitions,
assembled with commentaries, circa 1617, by Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón. English version edited by Michael D. Coe and Gordon Whittaker. Presented here as a further installment of a work in progress coedited by myself and Heriberto Yépez. (J.R.)]
[What follows are two sections from a longer interview conducted by the Georgian poet and translator Irakli Qolbaia, in which Eshleman takes on two key words in his work — “origin” and “penetralia” — and ties them to his own emergence and development as a poet and major searcher for the origins of poetry and the imagination.
Originally published in Revista de Antropofagia, no.1, year 1, May 1928, São Paulo. Translation from Portuguese by Adriano Pedrosa and Veronica Cordeiro.
Poems and poetics