[In the poems of Octavio Paz] I recognized the paradox which haunts us all, which makes of art criticism a perpetually unsatisfactory endeavor. I recognized that if the word springs ahead of thought, as Octavio said, and if it rises from the written page, and if, as he keeps repeating in all his poetry, the presencia arrives by means forever undisclosed, so does the painted image. What is true about the image, or presencia, is precisely what cannot be rendered through any other image, and especially not through that logic encountered at the circumference of experience. What I knew about visual art, I found confirmed by Octavio's poetry. (p. 32)
The mirrors and bridges and apparitions which course in the timeless currents of Octavio's creations, surfacing in the most unexpected moments to pose the paradox of creation itself, are finally justified by his faith in the presencia—which after all abides with the same durability in the works of the true visual artists. In those grand metaphors from which, by the very nature of perception, we cannot escape, finally lies the poet's power of salvage. (p. 35)
Dore Ashton, "Octavio Paz and Words and Words and Images," with translations by Andrée Conrad, in Review (copyright © 1976 by the Center for Inter-American Relations, Inc.), Fall, 1976, pp. 32-5.
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