This collection of Ernesto Cardenal's poems expresses the strength and vitality of a nation still struggling to survive in the face of a bitter fight against the US-backed Contras.

..". very well translated... Cardenal merits praise for presenting, on such an ambitious scale, a passionate alternative history of the Spanish encounter with Central America." Booklist

"Combining hsitory with poetry, Cardenal exposes the violence, treachery, injustice, and exploitation that are so much a part of Central America and Mexico s] past and present." World Literature Today

"Explore this dense, beautiful poem and you will be rewarded with riches that delight and hurt not ." Nicaragua Update

..". a remarkable text.... El estrecho dudoso is a masterful and compelling poetic account of early colonial Central America, and the translation is likewise masterful." Colonial Latin American Historical Review

In this book-length poem, Nicaraguan priest and revolutionary Ernesto Cardenal tells the story of the Spanish conquest of Central America from the "discovery" of the American continent to recent historical events. A remarkable achievement and an engrossing narrative, the poem is published here in both Spanish and English."

In 1898 Tahirassawichi went to Washington
"only to speak about religion"
(as he told the American government)
only to preserve the prayers.
And the Capitol did not impress him."
from "Tahirassawichi in Washington"

Ernesto Cardenal, Nicaraguan poet, priest, and revolutionary, foresees a new order for humanity. Here in his Indian poems, Father Cardenal interweaves myth, legend, history, and contemporary reality to speak to many subjects, including the assaults on the Iroquois Nation, the political and cultural life of ancient Mexico, the Ghost Dance movement, the disappearance of the buffalo, U.S. policy during the Vietnam War, and human rights in Central America. Each text is rich with history, poetry, and spiritual insight.

This bilingual edition is the only complete collection of Father Cardenal s Indian poems in either Spanish or English. Cardenal has checked and approved the translations and the glossary of cultural and historical referents.

"Of epic proportions... The literal translation conveys the epigrammic style and didactic, political message.... Of timely interest." Library Journal

"Priest and Nicaraguan revolutionary as well as poet, Cardenal epitomizes what makes literature live in Central America today. His poems are both sonorous and accessible, political and mystical." Booklist

..". a spectacular work..." Books of the South West

Apocalypse and Other Poems by Nicaragua's revolutionist poet-priest, Ernesto Cardenal, is the author's second book, the first of poetry, to be published by New Directions. The editors of this volume, Robert Pring-Mill and Donald D. Walsh, have chosen a representative selection of Cardenal's shorter protest poems, epigrams, religious, and Amerindian verse. Also included are two of Cardenal's most impressive longer works: the haunting and melodic elegy, "Coplas on the Death of Merton," and the title poem, "Apocalypse," in which the theme of an ever-threatening nuclear holocaust is the core of a modern rendering of the Book of Revelations. At Our Lady of Solentiname, his religious community on an island in Lake Nicaragua, living and working in the manner of the early Christians, Father Cardenal embodies what he professes: "Now in Latin America, to practice religion is to make revolution." An informative introduction has been contributed by Robert Pring-Mill of Oxford University. The translations are by Thomas Merton, Robert Pring-Mill, Kenneth Rexroth and Mireya Jaimes-Freyre, and Donald D. Walsh, who also translated In Cuba, Cardenal's assessment of Fidel Castro's revolutionary society, published by New Directions in 1974.

El poeta Jose Coronel Urtecho habia escrito sobre Cantico Cosmico: "Creo que la ciencia y la poesia no se habian encontrado hasta hoy para formar un todo cientifico-poetico. Lo que parece de veras nuevo en nuestra lengua y en toda otra lengua que yo conozca es que en poesia se hable de la ciencia o hable de ciencia en la lengua de la ciencia. Como la Divina comedia, de Dante, Cantico Cosmico, de Cardenal, es un canto de amor." Hay unos cuantos poemas que despues fueron escritos para ser agregados al gran poema Cantico cosmico y estos son los que aqui se publican con el titulo Versos del pluriverso.

Este libro habla de una situacion particular que tuvo Nicaragua, y de la situacion internacional de aquel entonces, cuando hubo una mitad del mundo que creia en el comunismo. La realidad ha cambiado mucho, pero me parece que este libro no ha perdido actualidad, y que lo que en el se dice sigue siendo valido como el mismo evangelio. La utopia de entonces es la misma de ahora, y es la que se ha venido teniendo desde los profetas. La fe y la esperanza en un mundo mejor las tienen muchos ahora mas que nunca, y me parece que aquellos que no las tienen tambien las deberian tenerB;

Cardenal, In Cuba. The Nicaraguan Poet-Priest muses over Cuba

Cardenal, In Cuba. The Nicaraguan Poet-Priest muses over Cuba