In these five essays the Ecuadorian poet Jorge Carrera Andrade traces the evolution of Spanish-American poetry from the sixteenth century to the present. The author shows how Spanish-American literature grew out of the special conditions produced when the New World environment totally transformed Old World culture and society. Initially, the brilliance of the land and its extraordinary peoples inspired European interest in exotic travel and utopianism; later, Old World literary currents came to have distinctive expression in Spanish-American writing. "Poetry and Society in Spanish-America" follows the historic commitment of the New World poets to social issues, particularly such unique ones as the endeavor to bring the Indians into national life, while "Trends in Spanish-American Poetry" dwells on the more purely aesthetic concerns that have stimulated the poets of the twentieth century. Throughout, Carrera Andrade ties his analysis to specific poems and poets. In the last two essays the author presents a clear perspective of his poetic development from 1930 to 1960. "A Decade of My Poetry" and "Poetry of Reality and Utopia" will especially interest readers of Carrera Andrade's poetry, for not only do they elucidate the personal history and philosophy informing his poems, they also reveal how truly his inspiration springs from that unique Spanish-American world he has so clearly delineated.

Has poetry lost its relevance in the postmodern age, unable to keep pace with other forms of cultural production such as film, mass media, and the Internet? Quite the contrary, argues Jill Kuhnheim in this pathfinding book, which explores how recent Spanish American poetry participates in the fundamental cultural debates of its time. Using a variety of interdisciplinary approaches, Kuhnheim engages in close readings of numerous poetic works to show how contemporary Spanish American poetry struggles with the divisions between politics and aesthetics and between visual and written images; grapples with issues of ethnic, national, sexual, and urban identities; and incorporates rather than rejects technological innovations and elements from the mass media. Her analysis illuminates the ways in which contemporary issues such as indigenismo and Latin America's postcolonial legacy, modernization, immigration, globalization, economic shifts toward neoliberalism and informal economies, urbanization, and the technological revolution have been expressed in—and even changed the very form of—Spanish American poetry since the 1970s.

Inspiring treasury of 40 poems ranging from the time of the Conquest to the first half of the 20th century. Works by Martí, Dario, Nervo, Mistral, Neruda, and many other poets are presented in their original Spanish-American versions with new literal English translations on facing pages. Brief biographical notes on each poet.

Early modern Spanish American poetry (c. 1500-1700) is a fascinating but little-studied aspect of Hispanic colonial culture. Spanish American poetry was transmitted in material ways, not simply as an intellectual and literary phenomenon. Poetry was considered as a written and oral object, disseminated, conditioned and controlled by a range of societal players both within and beyond the urban space. While the obvious networks of interchange connected the European metropolis to the burgeoning colonies, there were also cross-regional connections in Central and South America. As performance art, poetry connected with other art forms in the region -- music, painting and sculpture -- but as an act of devotion it also intersected the history of early American religious culture. This wide-ranging and highly interdisciplinary volume offers pioneering work bringing together scholars from both Europe and the Americas, North and South. Rodrigo Cacho is Reader in Spanish Golden Age and Colonial Studies at the University of Cambridge. Imogen Choi is Associate Professor of Spanish at Exeter College, University of Oxford.

The principal developments in Spanish American poetry in the second half of the twentieth century.