2Leaf Press published some great titles in Spring 2014. If you were swept up with summer vacation, here’s a chance to check out books by Abdioun Oyewole, Claire Millikin, Samuel Diaz Carrion, Odi Gonzales, J.L. Torres, and Ana Rossetti.
Branches of the Tree of Life, The Collected Poems of Abiodun Oyewole 1969-2013
Introduction by Betty J. Dopson | Edited by Gabrielle David
Branches of the Tree of Life is the first comprehensive volume of poems by Abiodun Oyewole, many of them never before published. Oyewole’s poems are powerful, often political, always lyrical and profoundly moving. Using the spiritual, the sacred and the mystical, Oyewole turns to the tree as a symbol of change and growth. His poetry rebranches into different directions, becoming grandeur in its proportions, and more complexly diversified in its structure. Branches of the Tree of Life is a living testament to a stunning career that confirms Abiodun Oyewole’s place at the forefront of poetic achievement. Available on Amazon.com.
After Houses, Poetry for the Homeless by Claire Millikin
Introduction by Tara Betts
After Houses is an extended meditation on homelessness. In unflinching, raw poetry, poet Claire Millikin explores states of homelessness, and a longing for, even a devotion to, houses — houses as spaces where one could be safe and at ease. Throughout the collection, Millikin draws from personal and family history, from classical mythology and architectural theory, to shape a poetry of empathy, in which some of the places where people get lost in America are faced and given place. After Houses echo the voices of girls who have not quite survived, but who persist, intact in the way that Rimbaud insists on intactness, in words. Available on Amazon.com.
Our Nuyorican Thing, Birth of a Self-Made Identity by Samuel Diaz Carrion
Introduction by Urayoán Noel
In Our Nuyorican Thing, Birth of a Self-Made Identity, poet, writer and activist Samuel Diaz Carrion explores the question, “What is a ‘Nuyorican’?” Our Nuyorican Thing is a compendium of blog correspondence for the Nuyorican Poets Cafe’s website (2001-2004), which includes Diaz Carrion’s poetry, seen through the eyes of a “Puerto Rican Indiana Jones.” This collection is riveting, informative and delightful, and will satisfy any reader with an appetite for cross-cultural discussions. Available on Amazon.com.
Birds on the Kiswar Tree by Odi Gonzales
Translated by Lynn Levin
2LP TRANSLATIONS
Birds on the Kiswar Tree by Peruvian Andean poet Odi Gonzales presents poems that sing in the voices of native birds and speak through the devout, but subversive, Quechua artists of Peru’s colonial era. Originally published in Peru in 2005 as La Escuela de Cusco (The School of Cusco), Birds on the Kiswar Tree stands as an elegant and richly imagined tribute to these indigenous and mestizo artists. Translated by Lynn Levin, this is Gonzales’ first book to be published in a bilingual Spanish/English edition. Available on Amazon.com.
Boricua Passport by J.L. Torres
NUYORICAN WORLD SERIES
Boricua Passport evokes the complex in-betweeness that represents the contemporary Puerto Rican condition as filtered through the prism of poet J.L. Torres’ life experience. In Boricua Passport, Torres, screams, shouts, rejoices, celebrates, tickles and challenges with a poetry sprinkled with Spanish/Spanglish that is immediate and urgent. It’s your passport into a world simultaneously real and imaginary, one most people don’t even know exists. A must read! Available on Amazon.com.
Incessant Beauty, A Bilingual Anthology by Ana Rossetti
Edited and translated by Carmela Ferradáns
2LP TRANSLATIONS
Incessant Beauty, A Bilingual Anthology offers to an English-speaking audience a first glimpse into Ana Rossetti’s eclectic and voracious symbolic universe. Editor and translator Carmela Ferradáns has selected poems that offer a wide range of themes that span more than thirty years, varying from the more brooding meditations on transcendental human qualities, to the latest festive celebrations of the poetic word itself. Available on Amazon.com.
