Mexican poet Alberto Blanco releases new editions of Dickinson translations and rock essays

Alberto Blanco, a Mexican poet, musician, and visual artist, released a new academic edition of his translation work and an expanded essay on the history of rock music in the United States.

Blanco published Amherst Suite through Amherst College Press in the hometown of American poet Emily Dickinson. The volume contains his translations of Dickinson's poems, which he first began compiling in a small booklet for the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México four decades ago.

While the book first appeared in Spain in 2010, the current edition includes a new interview with academic Ronald J. Friis and a prologue by Ilan Stavans. Blanco says the poems came to him during a snowy visit to Amherst College in the early 2000s, where he began transcribing verses that mimicked Dickinson's specific punctuation and style. In the United States, Blanco also released Un escéptico Noé through Codex.

This artist book features a single poem from his 1979 debut, Giros de faros. The piece is notable because Blanco wrote exactly 40 handwritten versions of the poem before finalizing the text. The American poet Forrest Gander provided the English translation for this edition. Additionally, Blanco released an expanded second edition of his essay, 1966: El año del nacimiento del rock, with Random House.

The work explores the origins of rock music and the differences between the experience of the genre in the United Kingdom and the United States. Blanco also examines the influence of German krautrock on black music and reflects on the lack of recognition for musician Leon Russell.