Kategoria BISAC: Poetry >> Caribbean & Latin American

Who were the poets of Mexico in the days of Aztec splendor? What were the poems of a culture so different from our own?

In this first English-language translation of a significant corpus of Nahuatl poetry into English, an expansion of his classic Trece poetas del mundo azteca, Miguel Leon-Portilla was assisted in his rethinking, augmenting, and rewriting in English by Grace Lobanov. Biographies of fifteen composers of Nahuatl verse and analyses of their work are followed by their extant poems in Nahuatl and in English.

The poets - fourteen men and one woman - lived in the...

Cesaire has been read politically as a poet of revolutionary zeal since the 1960s. This collection, the only one in existence in any language to give a truly comprehensive retrospective of Cesaire's poetic production, demonstrates the narrowness of earlier readings that grew...

As Carolyn Forche has written of Alegria's previous selection of poems, Flowers from the Volcano: "These poems are testimonies to the value of a single human memory, political in the sense that there is no life apart from our common destiny....

Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno writes in his introduction to Destruction of the Jaguar that "The Books of Chilam Balam are the only principal surviving texts of the ancient Maya. Written in the Mayan language but in European script, they are generally considered to be transcriptions and recompilations from memory of material originally contained in the hieroglyphic books, all of which were apparently destroyed by the Spaniards. . . . As they stand now, they are a curious and fascinating combination of prophecy, history, chronology, ritual and mythology."

Here is an English...

Not since 1959 when Octavio Paz and Samuel Beckett published An Anthology of Mexican Poetry, has there been a collection which so thoroughly examines the poetry of the country known for being "too far from God and too close to the United States." Yet, as Elliott Weinberger writes in his introduction,

"Americans know everything about God, but next to nothing about Mexico--few know that Mexico-particularly when compared to the United States-is a kind of paradise for poets."

Reversible Monuments introduces this "paradise" to American readers. It includes...

"Open Gate" is the first bilingual volume of Haitian Creole poetry published in English. Seven years in the making, this anthology is the result of the dedication of its editors and translators, Paul Laraque, Jack Hirschman and the Haitian poet Boadiba, as well as Max Manigat, one of the first teachers of Creole on the university level who was an invaluable advisor.

The editors focus on contemporary Creole poetry that reflects the struggle for human rights in Haiti. The book is divided into three sections: Pioneers of Modern Haitian Creole poetry, beginning with the founder of modern...

The Clean Shirt of It marks the first English translation of a full-length poetry title by acclaimed Brazilian poet Paulo Henriques Britto. As translator Idra Novey writes in her introduction, "No other contemporary Brazilian poets write like Britto. At least not with such a keen sense of the relationship between form and content, or pop culture and high art."

Paulo Henriques Britto has received Brazil's most prestigious prizes for literature and translation. He lives in Rio de Janeiro, where he teaches at Catholic University.

Idra Novey lives in New...

"Americo Casiano Jr. ... is able to transcend the one-dimensional, limited focus and explore the complexity and variety of our lives-our past and our future, our desires and our demons. Read Americo's work carefully. It reflects community life, the fight against the drug scourge, the experiences of driving a livery cab in New York, and the struggle for justice. His work celebrates the beauty of who we are-a multi-racial, multi-skilled community of working people."
-From the Introduction by Richard Perez

"On the Stand" presents the deeply moving and rhythmic voice of Americo Casiano...