Burnt Sugar/Caña Quemada: Contemporary Cuban Poetry in English and Spanish.

By staff -- Críticas, 3/15/2007

Edited and including an introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Hijuelos (The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love) and translator, editor, and novelist Carlson, this slim, loving bilingual compilation of 20th-century poetry spans four generations of the Cuban diaspora. Reinaldo Arenas, Heberto Padilla, Pablo Medina, Achy Obejas, and Ruth Behar are some of the better-known poets found here. Though the voices of Cuban poets still on the island could not be included owing to U.S. sanctions, this collection still offers a unique and well-edited look at Cuban poetics, with each poem—one per poet—adding a layer to the rumba of words. Altogether, 37 poems are presented, often in pairs with similar subjects or themes. A few are overtly political, such as Enrique Sacerio-Garí’s “1898 Vistas” and Heberto Padilla’s “I Have Always Lived in Cuba”; some are about not belonging, as in Laura Ymayo Tartakoff’s “Hopeless” and Ruth Behar’s haunting “Returning,” about the speaker’s trip back to Cuba, which ends: “I return to streets that don’t / remember me, no matter how hard I step.” Ricardo Pau-Llosa’s “For the Cuban Dead” offers a moving portrait of exile: “There is no enough in exile. Not enough anger, and the blanket of safety always leaves the feet bare.” At their core is a love of and longing for homeland, whether of the Cuba of the bodega, the bougainvilleas, or the sugarcane. The translations by Carlson and others are faithful and lyric, creating a unified aesthetic by preserving much of the rhythm and meaning from both Spanish to English and vice versa. Four poems remain untranslated because of their duality of language or a reliance on sound that cannot be reproduced. Both English and Spanish readers have much to gain from this collection and much yet to savor from this island of poets. Highly recommended for all libraries and bookstores.—Salwa C. Jabado, New York City