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Dear Carlota:

Your At the Paper Gates ... It's a triumph, no other words for it. First, the translations are very good indeed. Second, the individual poems are often outstanding, and always striking (and in such different ways too!). For example in "Exiles:Unpublished Letter from Nora," you weave Nora Barnacle into Molly Bloom - fair enough, almost predictable perhaps - but you do it in a very subtle way, that "Spanish" at the end, not the Italian she would have known. Many writers would have made a hash of this idea through their haste to spring the "idea" on us, but you're more careful. Then there's the humour, mocking and ribald -in, say, "Each Love Affair in My Life ..." (Isadora Duncan) --which runs through the entire sequence. Then there's the sharpness of insight, which is almost (but not ironic or dessicated), as in "Letter from Lucrezia Borgia to her Confesor"- "My punishment now / is twentieth century freedom." There are lines, or narrative twists, which are hard to forget. Of course there's a structure to the book, intentional I'm sure, which begins to emerge on rereading - present in details such as the echoing of the tattooed bodies of the first poem in the conclusion of the final piece ('Textures ...'), with its "sketching on your body". Such details make the book more than merely a collection of lyrics based on a good idea (women in history speaking, along with / through me, the contemporary author). In this particular instance, you convey that desire we have (don't we?) to mark the body of the beloved, that animal instinct to set some kind of sign of possession on the cuerpo of the lover.

Finally -- and that last aspect is a facet of this one - there's the sheer eroticism - never coy or mawkish -- of the writing. I'm sure this is in the texture / texturas of the original Spanish, and is bound to have evaporated somewhat in the translation, although I think I can detect it in places. It's very different from an Anglo-Saxon / North European variety and all the more impressive for that. I just love the way these poems hang between the unabashedly fleshy and hyperspace, too. I could go on; suffice it to say I'm very grateful to have it and that I've been carrying it around in my pocket for over a week, and probably will do for a good while longer.

Did I say that's it's beautifully-produced too? InteliBooks is to be congratulated. The appearance of the book is superb, matching its sumptuous and quizzical contents.

John Goodby, Poet and Critic, University of Swansea, Wales, UK. Author of A Birmingham Yank.

"Carlota Caulfield gives us an extraordinary and hallucinatory book, original and disturbing, which helps us to recreate our madness and love as extraordinary women of a universal history, from countesses to dancers, from Incan princesses to nuns, because this poet knows that the true secret of love letters does not lie with the recipient, but with the writer. This is an exquisite and joyous collection, a classic work of 20th century poetry. Caulfield is a poet to read and remember: her love letters will forever be in the secret zones or in the open landscapes of the written word."

-Marjorie Agosin, author of Women of Smoke

"I read your incendiary women with immense pleasure, particularly enjoying the historical texturing of the material. My only regret was that I wanted more. I will read the collection one more time because I may want to respond with a poem of my own. You are inspiring me!"

-Cecile Pineda, author of Face

"In At the Paper Gates with Burning Desire, Carlota Caulfield arranges a teasing collage of fragments of women's writing throughout history and from all over the world. Her sources are various, ranging from Sappho to Isadora Duncan, from a Virgin of the Sun to Rosa Luxemburg; letters are repositioned, faxes and e-mails recontextualized. But a common theme winds its sinuous way through these shards of emotion ripped from the past: the secret, playful language of love.

-Stephen Hart, author of White Ink: Essays on Modern Feminine Fiction in Spain and Latin America

"In Caulfield's poetry, writing herself becomes rewriting the other(s). There are two poetic voices in this book: an intimate female voice, strongly confessional, and an intellectual, cosmopolitan voice, full of multicultural references and endless metamorphoses, both of which transform our reading into a feast for the senses as well as for the mind."

-Jesús J. Barquet, author of Escrituras poéticas de una nación: Dulce María Loynaz, Juana Rosa Pita y Carlota Caulfield.