As Though the Wound Had Heard

Poetry. Latino/Latina Studies. Women's Studies. Translated from the Spanish by María José Giménez. "Words rarely fail us. Rather, it's often the other way around. A poem like Mara Pastor's Man reminds me of how much we undercut and burden them with the task of unidirectional sense- making. It lodges in my mind-parasitic, tapeworm-like-for its odd humor, unsettling ambiguity, and refusal to budge. The Busts of Martí is a comedic take on polyvocality. María José Giménez's translations capture the quirks of Pastor's playful sensibility, and what ensues is buoyancy."—Mónica de la Torre