Description: "[Espada is] a bridge between Whitman and Neruda, a conscientious objector in the war of silence." --Ilan Stavans
Brief description: Martín Espada has published more than twenty books as a poet, editor, essayist and translator, including Vivas to Those Who Have Failed and Pulitzer finalist The Republic of Poetry. His many honors include the Ruth Lilly Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Born in Brooklyn, he now lives in western Massachusetts.
Review Quotes: Martín Espada is a resourceful urban seer, alternately humorous, tender, and impassioned, a warrior poet who raises 'dissidence' to a level of majestic art. The Trouble Ball delivers, with Espada's characteristic fire and dexterity, the eloquence, empathy, and probity that have made him an indispensable American poet. The stirring final poem, 'Litany at the Tomb of Frederick Douglass, ' seems destined to become a contemporary classic.--Cyrus Cassells