What is Penguin Random House Portable Poetry?

I found some by chance poetry books at a very low price classified with the tag of Portable Poetryedited by the publishing group Penguin Random House and I wanted to talk to you briefly about them.

They have a mini pocket formatabout 12×15, and less than 100 pages, where a selection of poems and/or texts of some famous authors within the poetry genre. For example, we can find authors such as Emily Dickinson, Alejandra Pizarnik, Sylvia Plath, Fernando Pessoa or Federico García Lorca, among others.

They have no context, no author biography, no annotations. They are for immediate consumption. On the back cover we will only find a poem. The title they choose for each book is also the phrase of a poem. I think they are little books to get to the point and to know for himself what you’re going to find. Or not. You might as well play Russian roulette with them, since no one is going to give you any directions, so you can just open it up, shoot it, and see what happens.

I really admire whoever was in charge of selecting the titles, because they are the best phrases and they give off a sensitivity that catches you like a mosquito catches a light. And I feel very identified with the mosquito.

The price is around 6€ and they are quite collectibles (in fact, they make collections where you can buy several books together), although with the first one I bought, which caught my attention because of its title, the one by Alejandra Pizarnik, On this night, in this worldI’ve had a bit of a feeling that intercourse interrupted because of the bareness of the pages. I don’t know what period the texts belong to, or what work they come from, or anything at all, which gives me quite a bit of a headache and without realizing it you finish the book and feel a bit out of place. But to value artistically and only, I repeat, artistically a poem or a text, even without the influence of the author himself, is an interesting exercise.

According to Penguin, the bestsellers have been:

> On this night, in this world by Alejandra Pizarnik.

> I died for beauty de Emily Dickinson.

> It will no longer be from Idea Vilariño.

> It is easy to live alone by Fernando Pessoa.

> I don’t think I can touch the sky with my hands from Safo.

> The time that made us undoes us by Octavio Paz.

> I am vertical, but I would prefer to be horizontal de Sylvia Plath.

> Keep me in you by Raul Zurita.

> Remember, body de Constantinos Cavafis.

> Love poetry by Pablo Neruda.

> Life, death, love by Miguel Hernandez.

I leave you a list of the books here.