Empty Pool

Isabel Zapata graces her readers with a series of essays and prose poems, very personal works, about life. The first of these pieces is entitled “My Mother Lives Here.” Zapata takes readers into her home, the small space that is hers, and what she keeps to represent herself. Among these are dishes, photos, an inkwell and an ashtray, and books. Lots of books. After her mother’s death, Zapata inherits her mother’s diaries — over thirty volumes — and keeps a hundred of her mother’s books. Through them, she learns a good deal about her mother. “More than in her books, it’s in her notes that my mother left me her most precious legacy: a way to be with her.”

In “A Brief Chronicle of Canine Virtues,” Zapata finds and shares the stories of several dogs and their people, how their loyalties are exhibited and other endearing traits they develop and show. “…the friendship between dogs and writers is legendary and occurs, of course, off the page as well.”

”Notes for a Secondhand Translation” is an examination of the art of translation and how good translations don’t need to be exact replications but can be more interpretive, and therefore, it is really an emphasis more on the ART than on the translation. She speaks of her own translations of some poems thusly. “I like to think of them not as clones of the poem they issue from, but as relatives—like distant cousins who meet up only once a year—with a shared air of family.”

“In Praise of Nosferatu” is a fascinating look at the amazing octopus, our relationship to the octopus and to other animals, and our inability to experience what other beings experience. “To spend a moment observing an octopus is to confront how little we really understand about conscious mental phenomena—which is almost like saying we still don’t know what makes us human.”

Thirteen numbered (rather than titled), very short writings cover such fascinating topics as the bowerbird that builds structures to house its collections, ducks imprinting on a robotic duck, what really defines a cage, a wondrous experiment with photography in 1907, thoughts on a wide variety of birds and imagined birds, and more.

“In Defense of the Buffet?” is simply a fun description of what a buffet can be. “Buffets—those headless, footless monsters—lead us to make the most ridiculous and embarrassing decisions.” Her memory of a hotel in Puerto Vallarta and its buffet is delicious. “If I close my eyes, I can still feel the waiter’s stare searing our crumb-flecked hands. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

“Lentils with Apples” is a sweet memory of Zapata’s grandmother fogged by time and wishfulness, while “Ways to Disappear” gives readers to origin of the title of the book, Empty Pool, and the ideas Zapata draws on for it. “Filled pools are all alike; every empty pool is empty in its own way.”

“Against Photography,” “This is Not a Metaphor,” “Irritable Ear Syndrome,” “Silent Reading,” and “Love Letters to the Ants in My Neighbor’s Yard” fill out this amazing collection. The writing is simply gorgeous, lyrical and filled with images that are nearly palpable. The depth of the writing will leave readers with the desire to start over and reread every bit of this as soon as possible.