Octavio Paz

Octavio Paz (1914 - 1998) was a Mexican poet and diplomat. He grew up in Mexico City where his family was a prominent political family with Spanish and indigenous Mexican roots. He was awarded many awards and in 1990 the Nobel Prize in Literature. Paz was introduced to literature early in his life through the influence of his grandfather's library, filled with classic Mexican and European literature.

The year’s doors open

like those of language,

toward the unknown.

Last night you told me:

Tomorrow, we shall have to invent,

once more,

the reality of this world.

Time, with no help from us,

invents houses, streets, trees

and sleeping people.

When you open your eyes

we’ll walk, once more,

among the hours and their inventions.

We’ll walk among appearances

and bear witness to time and its conjugations.

Perhaps we’ll open the day’s doors.

And then we shall enter the unknown.

— Octavio Paz from ‘January First’ translation by Elizabeth Bishop