This from the March issue of Library Journal.
The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry.
ed. & tr. by Mark Weiss. U.S.: Univ. of California Pr. 2009.
624p. ISBN 978-0-520-25894-5. pap. $29.95. POETRY
Cuba’s poets have always found their place within the constructs of
history, yet we remain naïve about these
brilliant writers and the works that they have
beautifully created, until now. From the depths of the Cuban psyche,
editor and translator Weiss delicately gathers six decades of Cuban
poetry in this bilingual anthology. This literary feat, an act of
opposition to censorship, inevitably presents the works of poets who have
had to fight for their independence. While many Cuban writers were forced
into exile, their literature somehow flourished on the island and across
the sea, becoming a force in the midst of war and communism. Despite
ill-timed acts of bigotry and the crude editing imposed by the Cuban
government, they prevailed, candidly sharing their messages at a time
when homosexuality was outlawed and antirevolutionary opinions were
suppressed. Represented within this book are poets from the mid-1900s to
the present, such as Nicolás Guillén, Cintio Vitier, Nancy Morejón, and
many others. This is a prized collection of Cuban poetry. Recommended for
all libraries and bookstores.Rick Villalobos, Villa Park P.L.,
IL
Announcing The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry
(University of California Press).
http://go.ucpress.edu/WholeIsland
"Not since the 1982 publication of Paul Auster's Random House
Book of Twentieth Century French Poetry has a bilingual anthology so
effectively broadened the sense of poetic terrain outside the United
States and also created a superb collection of foreign poems in English.
There is nothing else like it." John Palattella in
The
Nation
