Georgina Herrera

This book is wonderful. The poems are what I think of as representational lyric confessional; descriptive without much figurative or abstract language, they are almost portraiture. Representational in two senses: in the artistic sense in that it intently recreates images of the world surrounding the poet, like representational painting; but also in the sense of Neruda's "voice for those who cannot speak", the role of the poet to remember, to bear witness to oppression, inequality, suffering, show more hardship, and also joy, rebellion, resistance, and beauty, to represent the experiences of their people (identified by aesthetics, class, race, religion, or any other number of concerns).

Hererra's exquisitely "humble" language (described thusly by the introduction), emerges not just in the language choices made by the translator (simplistic, unadorned), but in the grammatical struture. Straightforward statements, descriptions, very little figurative language, but never tedious, never anticipatable. The cadences of the lines are compelling, and complex in a way that contrasts with the lovely unornamented, language:

"There is no trap I have not escaped.
They have never found traces
that lead to my refuge." show less