DOWNHILL AND ROCK & CORE

“From symbolism to the poetry of social consciousness, Gabriel Aresti’s work is considered one of the turning points in the history of Basque literature.” Jon Kortazar, from the Introduction They’ll say this ain’t poetry and I’ll tell them poetry is a hammer. Gabriel Aresti, from Rock & Core “That little poem, in many ways, shaped my thought. I took a whole day to write it in beautiful block letters on the cover of one of my school folders. It made me understand the power of the word to destroy, to alter, to undo—and to construct, to rebuild.” Amaia Gabantxo, from the Translator’s Preface “Gabriel Aresti was the essential poet for my Basque generation of the 1960s. “If you want to write me/You know where I am,” he wrote, “In this most slippery hell/In the mouth of the devil.” It was the hell of Franco’s repressive regime, the endless darkness of his city, Bilbao, turned into an industrial and cultural wasteland. Aresti was the crucified Bilbao writer howling for justice and truth, the vulnerable man of eternal downfall who created a new poetics and a new subjectivity.” Joseba Zulaika, from the Foreword