Although today Luis Palés Matos is virtually unknown to most American readers, the eminent U.S. poet and writer William Carlos Williams once praised his younger contemporary as "one of the most important poets out of Latin America." Palés Matos was a native, and lifelong resident, of Puerto Rico. Though he was not black, he became one of the Caribbeans leading advocates of poesía negra (black poetry). His landmark 1937 collection Tuntún de Pasa y Grifería: Poesía Afro-Antillana (Tom-Tom of Kinky Hair and Black Things: Afro-Caribbean Poetry) joyously celebrated the African aspects and sources of Puerto Ricos culture and influenced later generations of writers throughout the Western hemisphere. Translator Julio Marzán has selected the best of Palés Matoss poems from throughout his career, among them "Prelude in Boricua," "Danza Negra," "Buccaneer Winds," and "Elegy on the Duke of Marmalade." He also provides a helpful glossary of obscure terms and an introduction that locates Palés Matos in the broader cultural context of his contemporaries and poetic influences including such North American poets as Walt Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe, and Vachel Lindsay.

“The revolutionary the dictatorship couldn’t kill, the trickster poet favored by the gods.” —Ben Ehrenreich, author of The Way to Spring: Life and Death in Palestine Poems of revolution by one of Latin America’s most beloved poets One of Latin America’s greatest poets, Roque Dalton was a revolutionary whose politics were inseparable from his art. Born in El Salvador in 1935, Dalton dedicated his life to fighting for social justice, while writing fierce, tender poems about his country and its people. In Poemas clandestinos / Stories and Poems of a Class Struggle, he explores oppression and resistance through the lens of five poetic personas, each with their own distinct voice. These poems show a country caught in the crosshairs of American imperialism, where the few rule the many and the many struggle to survive—and yet there is joy and even humor to be found here, as well as an abiding faith in humanity. In striking, immediate, exuberantly inventive language, Dalton captures the ethos of a people, as stirring now as when the book was first published nearly forty years ago. “I believe the world is beautiful,” he writes, “and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.”

Speaking con Su Sombra is a collection of poemas written for and inspired by mi Mami who passed away in 2017. The poems in this collection are about the universality of mourning. Speaking is an invitation to those who have lost loved ones during this past year. Sombra is a living ode as I honor Mi Mami's life, her passing, her inspiration, her guidance, and the gift of her legacy within the poems in this collection. As I remember the memoria of mi Mami, I am hoping these poemas can also honor those who have lost loved ones in their familias. Adrian Ernesto Cepeda is the author of So Many Flowers, So Little Time from Red Mare Press, Flashes & Verses... Becoming Attractions from Unsolicited Press, Between the Spine from Picture Show Press and La Belle Ajar & We Are the Ones Possessed from CLASH Books. His poetry has been featured in Harvard Palabritas, Alebrijes Review, Glass Poetry: Poets Resist, Cultural Weekly, Yes, Poetry, Frontier Poetry, The Fem, poeticdiversity, Rigorous, Luna Luna Magazine, Olney Magazine, The Wild Word, The Revolution Relaunch and Palette Poetry. Adrian lives with his wife and their adorably spoiled cat Woody Gold in Los Angeles.

A Gate Enables passage between what is inside and what is outside, and the connection poetry forges between inner and outer lives is the fundamental theme of these nine essays. Nine Gates begins with a close examination of the roots of poetic craft in "the mind of concentration" and concludes by exploring the writer's role in creating a sense of community that is open, inclusive and able to bind the individual and the whole in a way that allows each full self-expression. in between, Nine Gates illumines the nature of originality, translation, the various strategies by which meaning unfolds itself in language, poetry's roots in oral memory and the importance of the shadow to good art. A person who enters completely into the experience of a poem is initiated into a deeper intimacy with life. Delving into the nature of poetry, Jane Hirshfield also writes on the nature of the human mind, perception and experience. Nine Gates is about the underpinnings of poetic craft, but it is also about a way of being alive in the world -- alertly, musically, intelligently, passionately, permeably. In part a primer for the general reader, Nine Gates is also a manual for the working writer, with each "gate" exploring particular strategies of language and thought that allow a poem to convey meaning and emotion with clarity and force. Above all, Nine Gates is an insightful guide to the way the mind of poetry awakens our fundamental consciousness of what can be known when a person is most fully alive.

En Poemas de escombros y cenizas, Consuelo Hernández, su autora, nos provee de una palabra urgida y urgente, incontenible. Se abalanza esta voz por el espacio injusto que descubre en todo lugar, y hecha grito recorre en busca de hacerse oír, en donde ya sabemos nadie oye. No le parece tarea perdida sino necesaria. Y va pues, a atravesarse en los carriles de lo que vislumbra es nuestra historia – un sartal de catástrofes que no nos deja en pie- a parar estos versos en alto, a hacer visible la alerta, con la ilusión de que alguien se detendrá. Sin duda, un libro con estas características es un libro necesario y urgente. Elvira Hernández Poeta chilena In Poems of Debris and Ashes, Consuelo Hernández, the author, provides us with critical, urgent, and irrepressible words. This voice balances on the injustice found everywhere and becomes a shout that, in search of being heard, travels to a place where we know no one hears it. Its effort is not wasted, but necessary. And so it goes, down the road of what seems to be our history—a string of catastrophes that knock us down— to put these verses on high, making the warning visible, with the hope that someone will pause. Without a doubt, a book with these characteristics is a much needed and urgent book. Elvira Hernández Chilean poet

Sylvia Plath once said, "I want someone to mouth me." La Belle Ajar is a collection of poems inspired by Plath's 1963 novel that reimagines the journey of Esther Greenwood within the empowering odyssey of these 20 scintillating cento poems that honor the voice and legacy of America's most influential modern poet and author: Sylvia Plath. La Belle Ajar was selected in Luna Luna Magazine's 'Top 5 Books to watch out for in 2020' "La Belle Ajar is a beautiful collaboration between the dead and the living, the muse and the inspired, and a reminder to continue the conversations with the poets who came before us; Cepeda finds the magic of Plath and delicately constructs her enchantment, an enlivening book of poems you will return to reread again and again." --Kelli Russell Agodon, Editor at Two Sylvias Press and author of Dialogues with Rising Tides (Copper Canyon Press) "Adrian Ernesto Cepeda's new book La Belle Ajar opens up Sylvia Plath's words and gives them new life, Lovers of Plath and those looking for a book to captivate in the thick honey of self-discovery don't want to miss this release from CLASH Books." --Tianna G. Hansen, Editor-in-Chief of Rhythm & Bones Press "Plath's eternal essence -- her poetry of confessions, rife with details and darknesses -- is woven throughout this La Belle Ajar. The drama, the particulars, and an unlimited glimmering of language oozes in each and every poem. The ghost of Plath seems to be conjured, to find reanimation, in Cepeda's many inspirations. And while Plath is the muse here, of course, the work stands entirely on its own -- unexpected, surreal, and alight. A true tribute, emerging into its own new shape." --Lisa Marie Basile, poet, editor of Luna Luna, and author of The Magical Writing Grimoire "Adrian Ernesto Cepeda's sensual, electric internal rhythms provoke external, communal ones too. And La Belle Ajar is not just an exercise in homage but a choreographed remix, a translation, a correspondence between words and worlds. Cepeda leaves the door open, in pursuit of readerly access and inspiration. This work vibrates." --Chris Campanioni, Editor PANK Magazine and author of The Internet is for Real "Adrian Ernesto Cepeda's LA BELLE AJAR is delightful, thought-provoking, and compelling. The lines are both conversational and fierce, lulling us into submission, and then chilling us to the bone at the same time: "she burst /out, I never said, I'm not/godlike." Cepeda takes Plath, and digs in deep to her life, her struggles, her being, while inhabiting the world as it is now, while conveying the very strangeness of being at all: "I looked empty and subdued, /among the Gillett blades/paper scraps it occurred to/me, I must be idly dead." This book is meant to be read and loved, with all its complexities, much like a human."" --Joanna C. Valente, author of Marys of the Sea, #Survivor, and editor of A Shadow Map: Writing by Survivors of Sexual Assault