Víctor Rodríguez Núñez is one of Cuba’s most outstanding contemporary writers. He has published more than thirty books of poetry throughout Latin America and Europe and has received major awards all over the Spanish-speaking world. He divides his time between Gambier, Ohio, where he is professor of Spanish at Kenyon College, and Havana, Cuba.
Poetry
Nov/Dec 2019
Post No Bills
You wake up closetocadaver when the clock commands, day doesn’t expect you, there’s so much overseer to measure the millimeter of a cent held up because of you, you drink […]
Poetry
Spring 2006
Marco Polo’s Dilemma
From the Spanish. For Margaret Randall I’ve seen something of the worldManagua’s dust stormsthe bare snowon the pines along the road to Smolyanand the flags arguing atop the […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
Introduction: Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
In a recent interview, the renowned Polish poet, Adam Zagajewski, declared that in his country, “poetry killed communism.” Our point in bringing this up isn’t to question his position and […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
99
From the Spanish. i'm not going to read you a poem by Ezra Pound mom informs me on the phone i'm going to read you the last law to […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
In the Drying Shed of Souls
From the Spanish. Drips drips drips drips drips drips the cytostatic IV the veinburster cr ush ing you slowly s l o w l y while next to you […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
Tiger
From the Spanish. for Virgilio, before being devoured The tiger skin is a trap. When my son opens his eyes, like a shriek before the animal, he doesn't realize that […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
11
From the Spanish. my soul's full of metaphors acquired from generation after generation my souls full of more or less fascinating similes that witness the kindness in me my […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
The Stationary Man
From the Spanish. Birds quickly lose their fear and learn to perch alongside concrete cats. Birds that have never seen a real forest with firs, cypresses, or poplars. Fragile […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
Strange Animal, Innocence
From the Spanish. Children, if they can, grow. —José Saramago The time comes when you discover behind the latticework of your chest the death of the old animal innocence. […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
Quail
From the Spanish. A downpour of decapitated quail stone the hunger of those crossing the desert. A rain of headless birds is a headless rain. What forest was left […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
A House with No Attic
From the Spanish. I My love, think of the advantages of living in a house with no attic: you'll never fall from the ladder, the children who like to […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
Poems with Fog
From the Spanish. poems with fog, horrendous poems with fog where you can't drive unless you risk crashing into something, the new foggy poets like to name London without […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
Under the Power of the Crinoline
From the Spanish. The soundtrack drowns out all the breathing. You've fallen asleep in the middle of the plot when attentive eyes follow the floating crinoline on the screen. […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
Flourishing in Ruins
From the Spanish. Indescribable love flourishing in ruins the house that in years gone by belonged to the Chinese has seen it all: beauty and fear desire is mercury […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
The Sorters
From the Spanish. read in the rice the same as what blood reads in the body that can't sort a thing. They count the hard remains (clots, torn sky, […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
Saturday Shroud
From the Spanish. When hanging out the sheets like newly drowned bodies an adjacent shirt shrugs its shoulders. The anointed one, no name worth remembering, offers up to the […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
Mother
From the Spanish. my mother goes soft listening to a xylophone. according to the dictio- nary: musical instrument in the percussion family, made of wooden bars. the xylophone, not […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
77
From the Spanish. my God you gave me a live pig's tongue that quivered in the electric cooker and it stuck its tongue out at me spurred me to […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
Ananguish
From the Spanish. texts texts texts textures shuttles their cries (at)tack your skull they spring from it like petals and pronto: your entire head crowned prickled with words it's […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
Carnival Irons
From the Spanish. Forged in clandestine smithies they travel on ominous trailers through the national scar, artifacts for amusement, in neighborhood carnivals assembled in just an hour. Pieces of […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
Palp/ Antenna/ Tentaculary
From the Spanish. Silently I pour over the soothing music in me that follows the chaos the kicking of fingers suctioned by the thirsty pink. In dampness what peace […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
What Counts
From the Spanish. what counts is being there, on the edge of the stands. the dogs barking in front of you. dogs trained in the art of killing. welterweight […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
The Years of Learning
From the Spanish. when my mother would beat my back with her belt, i'd often curse her on the inside, "hold back those tears, asshole, for when you'll need […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
33
From the Spanish. the getting off i do waiting for Godot smells like mackerel in tomato sauce without tomato or oil or basil or low flame or high flame […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
Prehistory
From the Spanish. Let us make the poem in the image of man, but eternal. Beneath the uneven shadow of ferns the last Cro-Magnon man gazes at himself. The […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
Matter (selections)
From the Spanish. When I see the dust in my room floating, I think of the maxim, sink my face into it. • • We humans have built what's real, […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
Letter Alpha Writing (selections)
From the Spanish. 11 Supermarket candidates nervously smile To possible public. Still, how skillful Cashiers hired from before converse with Spontaneous customers, candidates breathe Destroy moment not lasting long […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
The Truck Driver and Me
From the Spanish. the first time i heard a poem, a poem by Charles Bukowski, was in the cab of a truck. it was a radio program and the […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
Iron Flowers on the Chest of a Man
From the Spanish. Tonight a bat's fluttered into the house. Its flight is easy, but awkward. Warning: it might be a spy tactic. Still I hide nothing in my […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
West Indies
From the Spanish. What I learned was that there was a place called the West Indies a place within Euclidian geometry where the length width and height of the […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
Mall on 54th Street
From the Spanish. The children disentangled from the family shoal let loose to whirl like dervishes throw themselves to the fences: look mom no lines and the fathers (actually […]
Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry
Jan/Feb 2018
Blueprint of an Impure Rose
From the Spanish. to Joaquin Osorio I Up against the Rocky Mountains in Colorado was the Paleolithic Traveler, in profile eternally prisoner, whistling "La Vie en Rose," scarcely whistling, […]
Poetry
Winter 2008
Love Is Worthy of This
Exaggerate, love is worthy of this. How to be happy with less than eternity? To love beyond any restrictions, even the speed limit, scarcely making good use of love’s […]
Poetry
Winter 2008
So Swift
All that is slow has something of death. Every body at rest rehearses a cadaver’s pose. Perfect stillness is always a bit disturbing. So quick, among roller coaster convulsions, brusque […]