Padre’s Right

Patricio Ferrari

to suicidecame after                     wards contortedfaces, in stale stench lighttrapped pallorbrain upon braincheck, strapped                    leather, lockedin a stupor, shocktherapy, afterpurple yellowbedsores                    burninginsomnia scabstended to by saintsof another creed. On the asylum’sfourth floor, a gnawed down pulse                    with voicesground and grinding. he cleftthe airlooking on, the fire angelleft him broken                    soiledlimbs crossed upon the coldfloor, numb                      as the scarabs of the gardenhatched night

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Photo:
Melanie Willett

Patricio Ferrari (b. 1975) grew up in Merlo, Buenos Aires, to Piemontesi and Calabresi immigrants. At 16, he left Argentina to attend high school and play soccer in the U.S. through the Rotary Exchange Program. During nearly a decade in the U.S., where he earned a BA in Philosophy and French, he also attended the Collège International de Cannes in France. Ferrari later traveled extensively in India, exploring the Hindi heartland and the Andaman Islands.

In 2002, he moved to Paris, where he earned an MA in Comparative Literature from Université Sorbonne Nouvelle. A pivotal encounter with the works of Fernando Pessoa led him to Lisbon, where he spent the next decade transcribing Pessoa’s unpublished writings, editing several of his books, and completing a PhD in Linguistics from Universidade de Lisboa.

Ferrari has published twenty books, including The Galloping Hour: French Poems by Alejandra Pizarnik (with Forrest Gander; New Directions, 2018), The Complete Works of Álvaro de Campos by Fernando Pessoa (with Margaret Jull Costa; New Directions, 2023) and Habla terreña [Field Talk] by Frank Stanford (with Graciela S. Guglielmone; Pre-textos, 2023). His poetry has appeared in Fence, Asymptote, The Brooklyn Rail, Southwest Review, and other publications. Since 2017, he has lived in New York City, where he teaches in the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College. He speaks seven languages (Spanish, Italian, English, French, Portuguese, German, Hindi).

109.2

Dallas, Texas

Southern Methodist University

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Greg Brownderville

Deputy Editor & Web Editor
Robert Rea

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Joe Milazzo
A. Kendra Greene

Founded in 1915 and housed on the campus of Southern Methodist University, Southwest Review is the third-longest-running literary quarterly in the United States. SwR has featured many important writers, including D. H. Lawrence, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Robert Penn Warren, Allen Ginsberg, Annie Dillard, and Anne Carson.

In 2018 SwR redesigned its print edition and, for the first time, launched a website with exclusive text, art, photography, video, and audio

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