New World Written

Award‑winning poet María Baranda is a major figure in contemporary Latin American literature. Paul Hoover is the author of O, and Green: New and Selected Poems and professor of creative writing at San Francisco State University.

“María Baranda is a masterful poet and one of Mexico’s strongest voices. Filled with surprise and intelligence, her work addresses the eternal questions.”—Jennifer Clement, president of PEN International and author of The Widow Basquiat“These are magmatic, furiously imaginative poems refracting the delirious Baroque lucidity of poets such as Góngora and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and the restless vitality of the Americas. Language is their searing truth.”—Mónica de la Torre, Brooklyn College“Rilke claimed that the mystery resides in the aura of a poem, in what it radiates around it without verbal formulation. I think it is this kind of mystery that is perceived in María Baranda’s poetry, made of glimpses, visions, sometimes clairvoyance, because she sees deeper and further than most of us.”—Fabienne Bradu, author of Antioneta“María Baranda’s sequences spiral in the most marvelous ways. With each turn, her language dazzles, aches, leaps. With each turn, her language makes visible human mysteries that ripple through private and public histories. Her imagination is prodigious, earth-rich, and singular.”—Eduardo C. Corral, author of Slow Lightning