The Infinite Loop/El Lazo Infi

A wonderful book from the latest winner of the Paz Prize for Poetry, granted by the National Poetry Series, that explores the interconnection between pain, love, and hope

"This bilingual edition displays poems in English and Spanish on facing pages, so readers can jump between languages, an additional draw to this dynamic collection." ―Booklist

Oneyda González's astounding winning entry of the Paz Prize for Poetry is a searching and yearning triumph of hope over pain―through love. It is no small coincidence that González and Paz are linked in this publication, since the spiritual experience the latter lived and observed in India have accompanied González for many years, through her own curious search of the invisible that culminated in The Infinite Loop / El lazo infinito.

In the collection, pain and love combine in a self-annihilating matter-against-energy reaction that eventually amounts to a dynamic and deliberate formula for understanding hope. The Infinite Loop exists in the most fiery flames of friction where the personal will to survive―to hope to survive―is forged.

González's book was selected by judge Lourdes Vázquez, who says of his selection: "There was strong competition, but El lazo infinito stands out for its unique inner depth. In a kind of introspective scenario―a movie theater―a poem begins the rite and as a voice, an 'I' (that personal identity) in continuous dialogue with her inner voice. That never-ending reflection creates a universe of revelations, desires, and knowledge, and its course diverge, intermingle, and grow like the stems of a plant."

The Paz Prize for Poetry is presented by the National Poetry Series and Miami Book Fair at Miami Dade College and is awarded biennially. Named in the spirit of the late Nobel Prize–winning poet Octavio Paz, it honors a previously unpublished book of poetry written originally in Spanish by an American resident.

Translated from Spanish by Eduardo Aparicio.

ONEYDA GONZÁLEZ was born in Camaguëy, Cuba. She has previously published the poetry collections La ciudad promisoria and El camino de Bárbara. Her writing was also included in the anthologies Mujer adentro and Catedral sumergida. In 2003 she published a book of narratives Las cinco y una noches, and coordinated the compilation Escrito sobre un rostro, about Severo Sarduy, to whom she returned to write about in Seres en el borde. Polvo de alas. El guión cinematográfico en Cuba brings together her interviews with critics, directors, and screenwriters of Cuban cinema. In 2010, Cuentos claros was published while she was working on the documentary project Severo Secreto, which was awarded a Friends of Princeton University Library Research Grant in 2015. Her most recent publications are Una biografía coral sobre Severo Sarduy and The Infinite Loop / El Lazo Infinito. González has a master’s degree in Latin American culture.