Description: This is the first collection in English translation of poems by the 86-year old dean of Puerto Rican poets, Clemente Soto Vélez. These are poems that explore such topics as liberation, solitude, and the 'promised land'-- Soto Velez approaches these themes with a firm and precise hand-- his explorations are at once intensely personal and universally applicable. In this bilingual book which offers a selection of his poetry drawn from Soto Velez's published works dating back to 1937, we are given the scope of the poet's life, his struggles and accomplishments.
Review Quotes: "One message is clear in these poems; we are made of communal energy, which is dynamic and liberating. Living as energy, as these poems live, one wave creating the next, allows us to recognize ourselves in a universe to which we feel our belonging. These poems are enormous in their statement, they provoke in us our capacity to say 'no, '--to subvert and refuse within ourselves the repressive word, the law of despair and poverty, which requires our agreement." -- Dale Jacobson