Diana´s Tree

ALEJANDRA PIZARNIK (1936-1972) was a leading voice in twentieth-century Latin American poetry. She spent most of her life in Argentina. In 1960, she moved to Paris, where she was influenced by the work of the Surrealists and participated in a vibrant expatriat community of writers that included Julio Cortázar and Octavio Paz.

Pizarnik published Diana´s Tree in 1962. Her fourth collection, Diana´s Tree would both change and establish her poetic voice, and it contained the slimmest verses the poet would ever write. Its first publication contained a glowing introduction by Octavio Paz, included here.

Pizarnik would live for only ten years after the publication of this book. When she committed suicide, at the age of thirty-six, critics had already compared her to Sylvia Plath, and likened the scope of her literary influence to that of Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Celan.

YVETTE SIEGERT is a poet and literary translator. She has edited for the United Nations and The New Yorker, and has taught at Columbia University and the 92nd Street Y.