FROM “PUERTO RICO”:
“To the bad times
give a happy face,
place a red amapola
in your black dark hair.
Revive the mummies,
the dead,
burst the bodies
out of the coffins
let’s all walk to the plaza
this final time”
Reviews
“From one of the world’s most eminent poets, Beneath the Spanish is a trumpeting source to draw from in this unsteady time. This book is a virtual encyclopedia of poetics histories in colonial resistances. Thoroughly steeped in signature inimitable musicality and flourishing image verse, this encompassing, jazz-inspired, paramount collection brings us to our knees and delivers us back into the beauty of life amidst all its human complications and conditions. Into the spirit stains, perfumes, and lingual intensities bridging migrations, languages, and cultures to reel in lucidity and create a balancing nest of home. A socially artistic creation by a seasoned genius, Beneath the Spanish is on time, in time, and Victor Hernández Cruz delivers one of the most gorgeously stunning and remarkable contributions to the canon to date. Go on, lose yourself in this.” —Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, author of Streaming