Rumba Atop the Stones (Paperback)

Orlando Ricardo Menes

ISBN 10: 190071549X / ISBN 13: 9781900715492

Published by Peepal Tree Press Ltd, Yorkshire, 2001

About this Item

Paperback. A richly complex continuum of voices and characters inhabits these poems. An ecstatic hermit cultivates saints' body parts in a hothouse by the sea. A washerwoman invokes Oshun, orisha of love, while scrubbing laundry, and then a songbird magically appears. A fisher's acolyte son "flies from island / to island, wreathing with rain-lilies / light houses, masts, and campanili." An exiled Caliban meditates on the music of lifeless creatures as a source of power and aesthetic revelation. A communist AfroCuban dockworker rails against sugar as the black man's curse, while on a sugar plantation European Jewish immigrants and black cutters celebrate their common diasporic heritage. His verse rich in imagery and metaphor, the poet constructs a cosmic vision of the Caribbean that weaves African, European, and indigenous elements into a vibrant new synthesis, creating islands at once strange and familiar, haunting and sublime. Orlando Ricardo Menes writes poetry of baroque imagination and passionate energy. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781900715492

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Rumba Atop the Stones (Paperback)
• Publisher: Peepal Tree Press Ltd, Yorkshire
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 190071549X
• ISBN 13: 9781900715492
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

In verse rich in imagery and metaphor, Cuban-American poet Orlando Menes constructs a cosmic vision of the Caribbean that weaves African, European and indigenous elements into a vibrant synthesis. The voices of communist, Christian and Orisha devotee blend in baroque celebration of the Caribbean's unique heritage.

About the Author

Orlando Ricardo Menes is the author of three other books of poetry, including Fetish: Poems. His work has appeared in the Harvard Review, Crab Orchard Review, Ploughshares, West Branch, Callaloo, and elsewhere.