Time Without Keys

Vitale’s poems are short–rarely more than a page–as if, having perched for a moment on our attention, they have determined not to overstay their welcome. Their ludic play [is] combined with a light (gentle, not jovial) tone. … Vitale’s poems aren’t mystical effusions; they are made things.–Ange Mlinko “New York Review of Books”Throughout, we taste Vitale’s elemental attention, turned to the snail, the bird, the word itself… [these are] selections from 75 years of celebrated lyric imagination.–Rebecca Morgan Frank “Literary Hub”Vitale’s affinity for that which is transient gives the book a buoyant edge… Her poems carry this spirit of secrecy–as if someone were speaking from the other side of a barrier, and as if the poem could get you there.–Janani Ambikapathy “Harriet Books”Thank you Ida for being you, for your restrained and necessary poetry, for that Uruguayan memory that fills this cold apartment in Paris with birds.–Julio Cortárzar

Ida Vitale was born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1923. She is one of Latin America’s most celebrated and respected poets. Vitale has published over thirty works of poetry, prose, and literary criticism, in addition to numerous translations. In Uruguay and Mexico, where she lived in exile, she was an important intellectual figure. In the late 1980s, Vitale settled in Austin, TX until her return to Montevideo in 2016, after the death of her husband. She is the fifth woman to win the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the highest accolade in Spanish. Her awards include the National Prize in Uruguay, the Reina Sofía Prize, the Octavio Paz Prize, the García Lorca Prize, and the Max Jacob Prize. In 2019, the BBC named her one of the world’s 100 most influential women.