This volume of poetry includes many poems that do not make complete sense. The book is passionate, and from an interesting perspective. I would not recommend this book to many children, but some could handle it. For fluent spanish speakers, I would recommend this book to you. I think it would be interesting to read the spanish and english parts for the context may vary slightly.

"Selected Poetry, 1937-1990," edited by Djelal Kadir, is a fine collection by the Brazilian poet Joao Cabral de Melo Neto. This is a bilingual edition, with Cabral's Portuguese originals and the English translations on facing pages. The translations are by editor Kadir, Elizabeth Bishop, Galway Kinnell, Ricardo da Silveira Lobo Sternberg, and others.

Cabral (as I read him through the translators) writes with a directness and clarity. Many of his poems are about poetry and writing in general. He also has a number of poems about other poets and creative artists: Marianne Moore, W. H. Auden, Mondrian, Paul Klee, etc. Especially moving is his painful, but beautiful poem about Spanish poet Miguel Hernandez ("Encounter with a Poet").

Other excellent poems include "Culling Beans," in which the title act becomes a metaphor for writing (hence the title of this review); "The Death and Life of a Severino," with its flavor of social protest; and "Weaving the Morning," a wonderful poem about roosters greeting the dawn. I recommend this book to those interested in Brazilian literature or 20th century poetry.