Melinda Camber Porter's conversation with Octavio Paz took place in August 1983 at his home in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Camber Porter traveled to Mexico to write an article on the John Huston filming of Under the Volcano (novel by Malcolm Lowery) for The Times (London). She took this opportunity to also interview Octavio Paz. Their wide-ranging conversation included the subjects of comparative art, literature, poetry and politics in Mexico, Latin America, Europe and America, as well as Paz's reflections on writer's block. This conversation took place at the same time as the publication of the English language edition of Octavio Paz's book, Marcel Duchamp. Dr. Laura Vidler, Chair of Spanish at the University of South Dakota, writes in her foreword, "if you think you've read this interview before [in the Partisan Review in 1986] you haven't." As the Partisan Review redacted much of the content. "In this new volume, however, the interview is published in its entirety, and the results are wonderful. Empathy between Paz and Camber Porter is established quickly. A professional diplomat, Paz's dual life as cultural ambassador and writer parallels Camber Porter's. Conversation about Duchamp, Picasso, Camus and Matisse-previously cut-appears here, as well as discussion of the classical Spanish poets that made up Paz's early reading-Quevedo, Gongora, and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (the subject of Paz's book, Las trampas de la Fe). In addition to a complete transcription of the interview, this volume includes Paz's Nobel speech in both English and (the original) Spanish, as well as further information on the work of Melinda Camber Porter." explains Vidler. In the second foreword, Scott Chaskey, a poet and farmer-naturalist from Sag Harbor, New York, provides his personal inspirations received from Octavio Paz. "For forty years I have returned to this beautiful evocation by Octavio Paz from The Bow and the Lyre," explains Chaskey. He writes on, "The interview you are about to read, conducted in 1983, eight years before Paz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, is the record of a conversation that takes place between two spirited and original poets, the Mexican master at age 69, and the young and curious British writer/artist, aged 30. Melinda Camber Porter begins with a plan, as a journalist is trained to do, but immediately following their introduction conversation begins to spin and is enlivened through a shared poetic sensibility. Melinda is interested in Octavio's cosmology-at first he retreats: "That's a big question, cosmology..." he replies, but throughout the course of the interview she sort of coaxes some of this out of him, artist to artist. They discuss history, psychology, the creative process, politics, eroticism, the accuracy of Milton's Hell, and they comment on an eclectic mix of writers-Whitman, William Blake, Camus, Shelley, Baudelaire, Eliot, Thoreau, and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz-though again and again the conversation returns to the poetic." In addition to Melinda Camber Porter's interview with Octavio Paz in 1983, this published edition includes Octavio Paz' 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature lecture in the original Spanish and an English translation. Melinda Camber Porter Archive of Creative Works Volume I: Journalism and Volume II: Art and Literature ISSN: 2379-2450 (Print), 2379-3198 (Ebook), 2379-321X (Audio) Website: www.MelindaCamberPorter.com Wikipedia: http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melinda_Camber_Porter YouTube: https: //www.youtube.com/channel/UCIflCaF2qpHh8uQgffSXLDQ
Author Biography:
Octavio Paz was a Mexican writer, poet and diplomat. He won the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is considered one of the most influential writers and poets of the 20th Century. A prolific author and poet, Paz published scores of works during his lifetime. His later poetry dealt with love and eroticism, the nature of time, and Buddhism. He also wrote poetry about his other passion, modern painting, dedicating poems to the work of Marcel Duchamp, Antoni Tapies, Robert Rauschenberg, Joan Miro, and Roberto Matta. As an essayist, Octavio Paz wrote on topics including politics, economics, anthropology, and sexuality. Melinda Camber Porter In Conversation With Octavio Paz was in 1983 at the time of the English publication of Marcel Duchamp by Octavio Paz. They also discussed the differences and state of Mexican, North American and European culture and politics. Joseph R. Flicek, Director Melinda Camber Porter Archive of Creative Works Volume I: Journalism and Volume II: Art and Literature ISSN: 2379-2450 (Print), 2379-3198 (Ebook), 2379-321X (Audio) Website: www.MelindaCamberPorter.com Wikipedia: http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melinda_Camber_Porter YouTube: https: //www.youtube.com/channel/UCIflCaF2qpHh8uQgffSXLDQ Melinda Camber Porter (1953 - 2008) was born in London and graduated from Oxford University with a First Class Honors degree in Modern Languages. She began her writing career in Paris as a cultural correspondent for The Times of London from Paris than New York. French culture is the subject of her book Through Parisian Eyes (published by Oxford University Press), which the Boston Globe describes as "a particularly readable and brilliantly and uniquely compiled collection." She interviewed many leading cultural figures including four Nobel Prize winners: Saul Bellow, Gunter Grass, Eugenio Montale, and Octavio Paz. She interviewed over 50 major writers and film directors including: Joyce Carol Oates, Joan Diddion, Frances Sagan, Michael Apted, Martin Scorsese, and Wim Wenders. Camber Porter's left over 50 audio recordings of these interviews. Her novel, Badlands, a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, was set on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Publishers Weekly stated "a novel of startling, dreamlike lyricism." A film documenting the creation of the paintings featured in this solo exhibition, entitled, The Art of Love, showed regularly on Public Television stations nationally with her poetry and paintings. Camber Porter's paintings have also served as the primary inspiration and as backdrops for several of her theatrical works. She created the backdrops, book, and lyrics for the musical Night Angel, with music by Carmen Moore and was originally performed at Lincoln Center in New York City. She created the book, lyrics, and backdrops for the rock-opera-in-progress, Journey to Benares, with music, direction and choreography by Elizabeth Swados, and was performed at the Asia Society and Museum in New York City. Melinda Camber Porter leaves a prolific and creative legacy with thousands of paintings; over two hundred hours of audio and film interviews with international creative figures in the arts, film and literature; and her tens of thousands of pages of writings: novels, plays, essays, journalism and volumes of poetry. Her creative and spiritual works will be enjoyed for generations.
