Poems trickle down the page in thin columns like sweat or tears ("don’t cry, don’t cry! / someone shouted / they were masked / so who could tell who it was"). The result retains the author's characteristic punchiness (an ode to artist Ana Mendieta is strikingly funny) and subtle profundity ("time is a ruined fountain, a prayer to the sea") while displaying dexterous formal intensity. As a cutting-edge feminist, Obejas employs an interesting tactic to address traditionally gendered Spanish words: she replaces “-a” and “-o” endings with "-e," which creates a nearly "gender-free" text. An influential and prolific Cuban American journalist, fiction writer, and poet, Obejas is also an accomplished translator, and this bilingual poetry collection delivers its lyrics twice-over, appearing first primarily in English, followed by the entirety of the collection in Spanish.
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