Cecilia Vicua: Deer Book

The fruition of decades of labor, Vicuas poetical works on the cosmologies and myths of the deer are now realized in a gorgeously designed artists book Inspired initially by Jerome Rothenbergs translation Flower World Variations, which Cecilia Vicua (born 1948) first encountered in 1985, Cecilia Vicua: Deer Book brings together nearly 40 years of the artists poetry, "poethical" translations and drawings related to cosmologies and mythologies surrounding the deer, and sacrificial dance in cultures around the world. Woven like one of her quipu installations, Vicuas textswhich include original compositions in Spanish as well as English translations by Daniel Borzutzkybecome meditations on translation, not just of the sacred nature of this animal but on how our understandings of ceremony and ritual are transformed by this ongoing process. Taken as inspiration rather than conundrum, the impossibility of translation opens up poetic possibilities for Vicua as she continues her lifelong exploration into the nature of communication across eras and distant lands, languages and shared symbols within Indigenous spiritualities.