The Galloping Hour: French Poems

The Galloping Hour: French Poems--never before rendered in English and unpublished during her lifetime--gathers for the first time all the poems that Alejandra Pizarnik (revered by Octavio Paz and Roberto Bolano) wrote in French. Conceived during her Paris sojourn (1960-1964) and in Buenos Aires (1970-1971) near the end of her tragically short life, these poems explore many of Pizarnik's deepest obsessions: the limitation of language, silence, the body, night, sex, and the nature of intimacy.

Drawing from personal life experiences and echoing readings of some of her beloved/accursed French authors--Charles Baudelaire, Germain Nouveau, Arthur Rimbaud, and Antonin Artaud--this collection includes prose poems that Pizarnik would later translate into Spanish. Pizarnik's work led Ra l Zurita to note: "Her poetry--with a clarity that becomes piercing--illuminates the abysses of emotional sensitivity, desire, and absence. It presses against our lives and touches the most exposed, fragile, and numb parts of humanity."