"This magnificent selection from two decades of work by Victor Rodriguez Nunez confirms his pivotal position in international poetry. Dissolving fixed identities and formal limitations alike, the mercurial spaces of these poems reveal multiple selves, elliptical journeys and a passionate attention to everyday sensory experience. This is Cuban poetry energized by transcultural encounters, while two vital language currents of the Americas, Spanish and English, meet in Katherine Hedeen's scintillating translations. As 'rebel matter', these are poems that engage with the world in its elements - molten, fluid and restless. They invite the reader to tune in to new frequencies, not just to the sonic pleasures of language, but also to the lively matter of a universe beyond the human, its squirrels, asphalt, dust clouds and stars. Poetry's imaginative potential, Rodriguez Nunez reminds us, generates forms of dialogue that are more urgent now than ever: 'there won't be revolution / if we don't let night speak'." -Zoe Skoulding

Victor Rodriguez Núñez is one of today's most outstanding Cuban writers, although he has lived and worked elsewhere for nearly two decades, first in Nicaragua and Colombia and, since 1995, in the USA. The present collection, based on his selected poems With a Strange Scent of World: First Anthology, 1978-1998 (Havana, 2004), offers a representative sample, as well as a rewriting, of his early poetic work, full of vivid images from the poet's youth and of both rural and urban Cuba.In an interview, Núñez described his search for "a poetry that is… participatory yet not political… communicative yet not explicit… dialogic yet not conversational, Cuban yet not essentially nationalist…" and in her introduction to this volume, Katherine Hedeen provides us with background detail that helps to set the poet's work in context. In Katherine Hedeen's skilful translation, we discover poems that are at once committed and experimental, where every limit is challenged, and where emotion and lucidity come together. Víctor Rodríguez Núñez has published eleven books of poetry, many of them recipients of literary awards, including the coveted David Prize (Cuba, 1980) and, most recently, the Leonor Poetry Prize (Spain 2006). His poems have appeared in literary journals throughout the world. He is an Associate Professor of Spanish at Kenyon College, Ohio. USA

Thaw is a book-length sequence of short poems, all ten lines long. Like haiku, at first glance these seem simple meditations on nature that, when given time, open out into a larger reflections on human experience, emotions and how the three interact.Nuñez enjoys playing with symbols, allowing images to break out into intellectual puzzles and literary references, and resulting in a sequence that is both shadowy and illuminating, tender and insistent, broad and deeply personal.Víctor Rodríguez Núñez has published eleven books of poetry, many of them recipients of literary awards, including Spain's Leonor Prize (2006), Rincón de la Victoria Prize (2010) and Jaime Gil de Biedma Prize (2011). His poems appear in several magazines in the UK and the US, as well as the Arc collection The Infinite's Ash. He is currently an Associate Professor of Spanish at Kenyon College, Ohio. Katherine M Hedeen also teaches at Kenyon College, and co-edits (alongside Núñez) the Earthworks Series of Latin American Poetry in Translation for Salt in the UK.This title is also available from Amazon as an eBook.

"This magnificent selection from two decades of work by Victor Rodriguez Nunez confirms his pivotal position in international poetry. Dissolving fixed identities and formal limitations alike, the mercurial spaces of these poems reveal multiple selves, elliptical journeys and a passionate attention to everyday sensory experience. This is Cuban poetry energized by transcultural encounters, while two vital language currents of the Americas, Spanish and English, meet in Katherine Hedeen's scintillating translations. As 'rebel matter', these are poems that engage with the world in its elements - molten, fluid and restless. They invite the reader to tune in to new frequencies, not just to the sonic pleasures of language, but also to the lively matter of a universe beyond the human, its squirrels, asphalt, dust clouds and stars. Poetry's imaginative potential, Rodriguez Nunez reminds us, generates forms of dialogue that are more urgent now than ever: 'there won't be revolution / if we don't let night speak'." -Zoe Skoulding

Victor Rodriguez Núñez is one of today's most outstanding Cuban writers, although he has lived and worked elsewhere for nearly two decades, first in Nicaragua and Colombia and, since 1995, in the USA. The present collection, based on his selected poems With a Strange Scent of World: First Anthology, 1978-1998 (Havana, 2004), offers a representative sample, as well as a rewriting, of his early poetic work, full of vivid images from the poet's youth and of both rural and urban Cuba.In an interview, Núñez described his search for "a poetry that is… participatory yet not political… communicative yet not explicit… dialogic yet not conversational, Cuban yet not essentially nationalist…" and in her introduction to this volume, Katherine Hedeen provides us with background detail that helps to set the poet's work in context. In Katherine Hedeen's skilful translation, we discover poems that are at once committed and experimental, where every limit is challenged, and where emotion and lucidity come together. Víctor Rodríguez Núñez has published eleven books of poetry, many of them recipients of literary awards, including the coveted David Prize (Cuba, 1980) and, most recently, the Leonor Poetry Prize (Spain 2006). His poems have appeared in literary journals throughout the world. He is an Associate Professor of Spanish at Kenyon College, Ohio. USA

Thaw is a book-length sequence of short poems, all ten lines long. Like haiku, at first glance these seem simple meditations on nature that, when given time, open out into a larger reflections on human experience, emotions and how the three interact.Nuñez enjoys playing with symbols, allowing images to break out into intellectual puzzles and literary references, and resulting in a sequence that is both shadowy and illuminating, tender and insistent, broad and deeply personal.Víctor Rodríguez Núñez has published eleven books of poetry, many of them recipients of literary awards, including Spain's Leonor Prize (2006), Rincón de la Victoria Prize (2010) and Jaime Gil de Biedma Prize (2011). His poems appear in several magazines in the UK and the US, as well as the Arc collection The Infinite's Ash. He is currently an Associate Professor of Spanish at Kenyon College, Ohio. Katherine M Hedeen also teaches at Kenyon College, and co-edits (alongside Núñez) the Earthworks Series of Latin American Poetry in Translation for Salt in the UK.This title is also available from Amazon as an eBook.