"Aldama's new book marks a milestone in Latino Poetry studies. His alert and careful exploration of four formalist authors reveals the true diversity of contemporary Latino poetry. This fascinating book not only corrects a long-standing critical oversight; it also shows how four ambitious authors have explored the poetic riches of both the English and Spanish traditions to create a compelling new Latino American voice." - Dana Gioia, author of Can Poetry Matter?, poet, and former Chairman of the NEA "Here is a pioneering study of four Latino poets who have chosen to express their distinctly modern-day concerns within traditional English metrical forms. Combining subtle close readings of representative lyrics with interviews of their creators, Aldama turns a revealing spotlight on a unique body of contemporary writing." - Herbert Lindenberger, Avalon Foundation Professor of Humanities Emeritus, Stanford University, USA "In a world of digital and social media, detaching us, it would seem, from the material word, Aldama restores the sheer heart of poetry. Brilliantly, creatively, and with no apologies, he guides us through the 'story,' the metrical rhythms, and segmentation (where lines are cut) in four Latino poets - two feminists and two gay - to show us how they make new our perception, thought, and feeling about the twenty-first century world we inhabit." - Marta E. Sanchez, Professor of Transborder Studies, Arizona State University, USA and author of Contemporary Chicana Poetry "The pleasure of form is that it's a kind of play,' says one poet. Another: 'I often begin with a phrase, a grouping of words that have become incantatory ' A third, on a scrap of language: 'I pick at it over time and eventually I come up with a line.' And the fourth, in talking about a successful poem: 'Its sounds please the ear.' So what we have here, where Latino poetics is concerned, is a book-length study that refreshingly privileges how poems are made, and not poems-as-props for some pre-determined thesis. These interviews are companion to Aldama's trove of close readings over the course of these four engaging studies. Formal Matters in Contemporary Latino Poetry marks a new threshold in the study of one of American poetry's most vital, yet under-examined strands." - Francisco Aragon, editor of The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry "With a keen critical eye Aldama doesn't so much interpret poems as he inhabits them, bringing to dazzling light the pleasure in actively participating with the forms and functions of carefully crafted language and lines. His magnificent book follows a unique and intuitive argument: that segmentivity, a quality endemic to both modern verse and Latino identity, illuminates how poetics and identity mutually arrange one another." - David A. Colon, Assistant Professor, Texas Christian University, USA, poet, and author of The Lost Men 'Aldama performs a thoughtful revision of existing critical vocabularies, urging us beyond purely sociohistorical or discursive approaches to Latino/a poetry, and towards a renewed engagement with aesthetics. Fusing close readings with cultural and theoretical reflections, Formal Matters in Contemporary Latino Poetry opens up challenging and largely unexplored lines of inquiry. There is nothing pro forma here, except in the hortatory sense.' - Urayoan Noel, Poet and Professor, University at Albany, SUNY
