Bleeding from all 5 Senses

“The raucous energy and desperate inventiveness of Bleeding From All 5 Senses takes on a second life in Heinowitz’s sinuous translations of Papasquiaro. Melding persistent social and emotional urgency, Bleeding from All 5 Senses affectively embodies something vital of our tumultuous world.

In a compendium of tones ranging from the slyly humorous to the jarringly serious, Heinowitz renders Papasquiaro’s poems with meticulous care and creativity. Heinowitz conveys the intensity and music of Papasquiaro’s voice in English in such a way that the poet’s language takes on new valences of meaning in both Unitedstatesian and international anglophone contexts. Heinowitz’s translation of Papasquiaro’s roving tonal shifts, idiosyncratic syntax, and mosaic of sociocultural concerns makes a new and useful contribution to contemporary anglophone poetry.”

— Cliff Becker Prize Judges Daniel Borzutzky, Aaron Coleman, and Mani Rao

“Mario Santiago Papasquiaro ignited a blaze that continues to burn. In his manuscripts, asterisks fall like sparks announcing flames. Each of his texts is the scene of intense daring: the poet enters the ring to deal his own shadow a knockout blow. Rarely has literature been put to the test with such courage. Mario despises feints; he does not try to bedazzle but he does play with fire. Convinced that true victory is in the flesh, he shows us the scars with which he writes the body.”—Juan Villoro

"I think the illuminating side of his work as a poet is still revealing itself. One merit of his poetry (and one that people may not be aware of) was that which distinguished him from the writers he admired—for example, his ability to portray a particular dimension of the coarseness of urban life (more prominent now than ever) that still hadn’t been expressed in Mexican poetry, despite the achievements of Efraín Huerta, the innovations of Salvador Novo and Renato Leduc, and the creative maneuverings of the Stridentists. Mario Santiago took his role as Mexico City’s flâneur very seriously, and a significant portion of his poetic visions are derived from real experiences. He managed to validate his own field of vision and to offer forth, from that vantage point, the sum of his impressions."—Claudia Kerik