Amelia Biagioni 
The Hunts 
translated from the Spanish by Renata Treitel.
ISBN 1-879-378-44-2 (paper) 135 pages, $15

OUT OF PRINT ~ unknown re-stock date

A bilingual edition of Las cacerías, an enraptured poetic cycle that takes the reader through the delirious swirl of the eternal hunt on earth and in heaven, in the past, present and future.  Sections of the cycle relate to the ancient sport of man pursuing beast, beast pursuing beast, man pursuing man, and the poet's quest to capture life and identity within words.  The final section presents the author as a woman pursued as a heretic, for having "spied on God."

Introduction by the translator and explanatory notes. Renata Treitel consulted the poet on every aspect of the work and here offers the most informed reading.

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Excerpt from The Hunts:

THE OTHER 

One and one is one.
                    E.H.

I am the other hunter.
United and divided
we have hunted
                  by our alliance
always together:
he — tales and wild beasts
I — dreams shadows echoes.
He — surrounded by his dramatic revelry
by his glorious roaring to manly games
and heroic battles.
I — encircled by his boundary line.
He has always possessed them,
                  making them famous:
my jungle
my lion
my act of courage
my time to kill. 

Sometimes he has taken me to hunt
                  by reflex in his storiesS
and always to detonate his phrases
                  crossing themes
in the hard combat
of his profile against the void.
Now he has rendered his writing.

And so by our pact
today I go out alone
delivered from the chains. 

It's my last safari
                  the only one
I am master
of the tangled preserve and its law
                  neither fear
                  nor pity
the dispossessed
                  without a pack of hounds
the one who warns
                  it is time.
My huge sad trophy
is right nearby
surrounding me
                  waiting for you
deep inside
                  I command
                  he complies
                  farewell. 

I aim and fire at him between my teeth. 

[Note:  The epigraph comes from the novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway, big-game hunter and suicide.]

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