The New World Written: Selected Poems

A lyrical collection of the finest poems by a leading Mexican poet, superbly translated for English readers "Maria Baranda is a masterful poet and one of Mexico's strongest voices. Filled with surprise and intelligence, her work addresses the eternal questions."-Jennifer Clement, President of PEN International and author of The Widow Basquiat "A literary event. . . . [Baranda's] work provides a bestiary as fierce as those found in the Odyssey, Beowulf, or The Waste Land."-Merrill Kaitz, Arts Fuse The poetry of Maria Baranda is a haunting homage to the natural world, transcendent in scope, attentive to the particular, and acutely attuned to the mystery of being. Absorbed by nature's otherness, Baranda seeks to inhabit the voices of the wind, of wings, night, day, and perhaps most keenly, water. These lyrical verses turn repeatedly to the longings and griefs of embodiment: "What is that God / To be praised with all our sadness / If not love / Or at least the wonder / Of being a body full of blood," Baranda asks. Drawing on epics such as the Aeneid and Beowulf, the mystical verses of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, and writers who engage the landscape of shore and sea, from Daniel Defoe to Dylan Thomas, this sweeping collection brings together the finest poems of one of today's most powerful and innovative Mexican writers.