These are poems written mostly in a time of war, and rooted in the land and people of Nicaragua. Zamora draws deep portraits of women of all classes, often using her own body as a metaphor and starting point. Recalling the years of revolution and resistance to U.S. intervention, she follows the riverbed of her memories through the land of her childhood, mourns the devastation of war, and illuminates the heroic lives of ordinary men and women.

Daisy Zamora was program director of clandestine Radio Sandino during the revolution and later served as vice-minister of Culture in the...