'BLANCO' A RE-READING OF OCTAVIO PAZ' 1966 POEM WITH EDUARDO COSTA, WHO READ IT WITH PAZ AND HOMERO ARIDJIS IN 1969

Eduardo Costa and PLB in an improvised reading of Octavio Paz' poem 'Blanco'

'Blanco', a 1966 poem by Octavio Paz, was read in 1969 at the Poetry Center in New York by Paz himself, poet Homero Aridjis and artist Eduard Costa.

A fragment of the poem was re-read without any previous rehearsal, in an improvised meeting at St John restaurant in London on June 10, 2011, by Eduardo Costa, curator Julieta Gonzalez reading the part of Aridjis and Pablo Leon de la Barra reading the part of Paz. Curator Mathieu Copeland was the only witness of the event. The reading was recorded with an iphone application.

We are thankful to poet Kenneth Bostock for lending us his copy of Octavio Paz' poem. Other possible versions would have had Mr. Bostock playing the part of Aridjis, or writer Chloe Aridjis reading the part of her father.

Artist Eduardo Costa met Octavio Paz in 1966. Paz wrote to Costa on November 11, 1966, in the letter he declared "aesthetic contemplation is finished, since it dissolves into social life".

Paz' poem 'Blanco' was meant to be read as a succession of signs on a single page.