Includes poems in various Latin American languages with translations into English

Acknowledgments -- Preface -- An introduction to Mestizo poetics / Cecilia Vicuña -- A historical introduction to Latin American poetry / Ernesto Livon-Grosman -- Maya scribes ; And all was destroyed (excerpt) ; Codex Cantares Mexicanos (excerpt) ; Florentine codex (excerpt) ; Inca Khipu / Anonymous -- Beautiful maiden / Inca Garcilaso de la Vega -- Popol Vuh (excerpt) / Anonymous -- Araucaniad (excerpt) / Alonso de Ercilla y Zuñiga -- Mestizo's ballade / Mateo Rosas de Oquendo -- Cachiuia ; Festival of the Inca ; Principal accountant and treasurer ; Priests who force the Indians to weave cloth / Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala -- Define your city ; An anatomy of the ailments suffered by the body of the republic, in all its members, and complete definition of what has ever been the city of Bahia ; To the city of Bahia laying his eyes first upon his city he sees that its merchants are the primary cause of its ruin, because it longs after useless and deceitful goods ; To the Palefaces of Bahia ; Upon finding an arm taken from the statue of the Christ Child of Our Lady of the Wonders, which was profaned by unbelievers at the sea of Bahia / Gregório de Matos -- First dream (excerpt) ; This coloured counterfeit that thou beholdest ; Tarry, shadow of my scornful treasure ; Diuturnal infirmity of hope... ; Villancico VIII (excerpt) / Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz -- Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel (excerpt) ; Book of Chilam Balam of Mani (excerpt) ; Grant Don Juan V life ; Eight-line acrostic / Anonymous -- Social virtues and illuminations / Simón Rodríguez -- Atahualpa death prayer / Anonymous -- New patriotic dialogue / Bartolomé Hidalgo -- To the most holy Virgin Mary ; Multiform salve (excerpt) ; Alphabetical-numerical prophecy / Francisco Acuña de Figueroa -- Slippery one / Hilario Ascasubi -- Song of exile / Antonio Gonçalves Dias -- Intimate ideas (excerpt) / Manuel Antonio Álvares de Azevedo -- Wall Street inferno / Sousândrade -- Martín Fierro (excerpt) / José Hernández -- Slave ship (tragedy on the sea) (excerpt) / Antonio de Castro Alves -- Cueca of the lady conductors / Rosa Araneda -- Waking dream ; Love in the city / José Martí -- Lesbian ; Afra / João da Cruz e Sousa -- Ars / José Asunción Silva -- Portuguese language / Olavo Bilac -- Love your rhythm ; Wandering song ; EHEU! ; Nocturne ; Philosophy ; Optimist's salutation / Rubén Darío --Three haikus : Willow, cherimoya tree, bug ; Ideogram lantern (excerpt) ; Havana impressions / José Juan Tablada -- Lady i ; Towers ; Favila / José María Eguren -- América invertida ; City with no name (excerpts) / Joaquín Torres García -- Lunatic Tertulia (excerpt) / Julio Herrera y Reissig -- A philosopher's agony ; Modem Buddhism / Augusto dos Anjos -- It's the silence ; Mare Vitae / Pedro Kilkerry -- To Eros ; Ineffable ; Intruder / Delmira Agustini -- Anthology ; Green-black ; My last poem / Manuel Bandeira -- Emotion and advantage of proven depth ; All morning the wind has spoken / Enriqueta Arvelo Larriva -- "This Hades is fluid. . ." (excerpt) -- Xul Solar -- Drops of gall ; Airflower ; A word ; Other woman / Gabriela Mistral -- Brazilwood (excerpt) ; History of Brazil ; Cannibal Manifesto (excerpts) / Oswald de Andrade -- Mix ; My lumy ; Totem night ; You have to look for it ; Votive offering / Oliverio Girondo -- Black heralds ; Trilce (excerpts) : XXIII, XXXVI ; Black stone on a white stone ; Telluric and magnetic ; I stayed on to warm up the ink in which I drown ; There are days, there comes to me an exuberant, political hunger / César Vallejo -- World of seven wells ; An ear / Alfonsina Storni -- Canto I, Altazor (excerpt) ; Minuit ; Piano ; Non Serviam / Vicente Huidobro -- Inspiration ; Nocturne ; A very interesting preface (excerpt) / Mário de Andrade -- Song of the old male (excerpt) / Pablo de Rokha -- Life (excerpt) / María Sabina -- Village on the river ; Why? / Juan L. Ortiz -- Khirkhilas (excerpt) / Gamaliel Churata -- Cobra Norato (excerpt) / Raúl Bopp -- Prelude in Boricua ; Black dance / Luis Palés Matos -- Golem ; Mythical founding of Buenos Aires ; Borges and I ; Limits / Jorge Luis Borges -- Canticle IX ; Magic love / Rosamel Del Valle -- Pyrargyrite metal, 9 ; Song ; Speech ; Second rose motif / Cecilia Meireles -- Death without end (excerpt) ; Elegy ; Pauses I / José Gorostiza -- This is that ; A passion for measure ; In the middle of the way ; F / Carlos Drummond de Andrade --Sensemayá ; Son number 6 ; My last name I, a family elegy / Nicolás Guillén -- L.A. nocturne : the angels ; Nocturne : fear / Xavier Villaurrutia -- To wait ; Trafalgar Square / César Moro -- Melancholy inside families ; Walking around ; Right, Comrade, it's the hour of the garden / Pablo Neruda -- Climate ; Lullaby / Aurelio Arturo -- Mansion of foam ; Deserted blue ; I's illumination ; Visitor extremes / Omar Cáceres -- Aloysius Acker is coming into the world ; Without time signature, hurrying ad lib/played freely, etc. / Martín Adán -- Thoughts in Havana (excerpt) ; Fifes, epiphany, goats ; Death of time / José Lezama Lima -- Way it must be ; Hue ; Aquatic rite / Enrique Molina -- God creates the Andes ; Myth of the jaguar / Pablo Antonio Cuadra -- Sunstone (excerpt) ; Here ; Exclamation ; Altar / Octavio Paz -- Warsong of the things (excerpt) / Joaquín Pasos -- No president's statue escapes ; 1973 ; U.S.A. ; Individual's soliloquy / Nicanor Parra -- Easy for singing ; Dumb, sad, and thoughtful ; Goddamn the empty sky / Violeta Parra -- You shouldn't copy pound ; Qedeshím Qedeshóth / Gonzalo Rojas -- Bulletin and elegy of Indian enslavement (excerpt) / César Dávila Andrade -- Education by stone ; Tale of an architect ; Uconfessing artist ; A knife all blade / João Cabral do Melo Neto -- Variations on time ; Obstacle / Olga Orozco -- Metamorphosis ; Poor world ; A guest ; I did not love you / Idea Vilariño -- Anniversary of a vision (excerpt) / Jaime Saenz -- From the fleeting and permanent (excerpt) ; Dark bond / Juan Sánchez Peláez -- María's first death ; Paracas Pyramid Performance, 1974 ; Khipu, 1965 / Jorge Eduardo Eielson -- Two murals : U.S.A. (excerpts) / Carlos Martínez Rivas -- Portable Madi dictionary (excerpts) / Gyula Kosice -- MADI / The MADI Movement -- Death of Thomas Merton (excerpt) / Ernesto Cardenal -- Livid light ; Silence around an ancient stone ; Malinche / Rosario Castellanos -- Antônio Conselheiro and the Canudos Rebellion / Apolônio Alves dos Santos -- I bury my hand in the sand ; Exercises ; Final scene ; Family secret ; Currículum vitae / Blanca Varela -- Hear the Earth ; Drink Coca Cola / Décio Pignatari -- Tortilla ; Sestina of Mea Culpa ; I trust now in nothing / Carlos Germán Belli -- Black Colá Jara ; Trivial jungle / Francisco Madariaga -- Displaced applicant (excerpt) ; Eva Perón at the stake (excerpt) / Leónidas Lamborghini -- amereida (excerpt) / amereida -- Object-poems / Edgardo Antonio Vigo -- Father's monologue with his infant son ; Those who are going to die can't wait / Enrique Lihn -- Ear's pavilion ; Born and dies ; Galáxias (excerpt) : flower blower ; Galáxias (excerpt) : Reza calla y trabaja ; Galáxias (excerpt) : inscribedcorpse / Haroldo de Campos -- CDLVI ; CDLXXXI ; XDV / Juan Gelman -- Eggtangle ; Eye for an eye ; To put on a mask / Augusto de Campos -- Leather telegram / Jaime Jaramillo Escobar -- Foreigners lie about what they want / Lorenzo Ramos -- Words of Pa'i Antonio / Antonio Martínez -- Mother, here we are / Aurelio Frez -- Grape harvests ; Dwellers (excerpt) / Alfredo Silva Estrada -- Meditate ; Authoritarian School and how a respectable literary genre was born ; Threat ; Romulus Augustulus ; Sexologic / Gerardo Deniz -- A moment captured by a Japanese painter... ; Untitled ; "Housing complex" / Isabel Fraire -- Exodus of the Gods (excerpt) / Sergio Mondragón -- Poem with simultaneous translation Spanish-Spanish ; Nuptial song / Susana Thénon -- No, I wasn't always this ugly ; Country--Sir Thomas ; Toadstools VIII / Roque Dalton -- Nocturnal singer ; From the other side ; From a copy of "Les Chants de Maldoror" ; Fiesta ; Useless frontiers / Alejandra Pizarnik -- Restriction of nocturnal movements ; Conjurer's tract ; Vision of Hiroshima / Óscar Hahn -- World's practice ; A bird's Earthness ; Good-bye to the twentieth century / Eugenio Montejo -- Most amusing song of the devil (A prose work half in verse, no joke. . .) (excerpt) / Osvaldo Lamborghini -- A meeting at Cho-Fu-Sa ; Kafka reborn / José Kozer -- Contra natura (excerpt) / Rodolfo Hinostroza -- Dead conquerors ; Poem on Jonah and the disalienated ; Appendix to the poem on Jonah and the disalienated / Antonio Cisneros -- Remarks concerning the exuberant activity of "phonetic confabulation" or "the language of birds"... ; Breathing house, almost the (author's) little house ; Ear ; New novel : the poet as superman ; Structure of political thought / Juan Luis Martínez -- Migrations (excerpt) / Gloria Gervitz -- Everything calm, immobile ; Which to paint which first ; Not time yet ; Where the yellow / Soledad Fariña -- Catatau (excerpt) ; Metamorphosis (excerpt) / Paulo Leminski -- Homeland ; Heels over head with life ; I'm afraid ; Canto 17 : Cumbal ; Canto 18 : Soacha ; Canto 3 : Dabeiba / María Mercedes Carranza -- It wasn't in Sicily, it wasn't here (excerpt) / Arturo Carrera -- Physical portrait ; Earth listening to us ; London Khipu ; Instan (excerpt) / Cecilia Vicuña -- Mar paraguayo (excerpt) / Wilson Bueno -- Tuyú ; Mme. Schoklender / Néstor Perlongher -- Radio Sandino (excerpt) / Daisy Zamora -- Inri (excerpt) ; Neither fear nor sadness (desert writing) ; My God is hunger (sky writing) / Raúl Zurita -- Water's lubricious edges ; Its dark force curving ; Give me, Earth, your night / Coral Bracho -- Flag of Chile (excerpt) / Elvira Hernández -- Twilight's idol / Reina María Rodríguez -- Miss Murkiness (excerpt) / Emeterrio Cerro -- Shock of the lenders (excerpt) / Jorge Santiago Perednik -- Stones ; Advice ; Effort ; Navel ; Fireflies ; Walker ; Learning ; Buzzard / Humberto Ak'abal -- I still want to dream in this valley ; For I am the power of the nameless / Elikura Chihuailaf -- Black ivory (excerpt) / Myriam Moscona -- A sound of ancient, faded flows ; Traces ; Grail / Josely Vianna Baptista -- Prayer so my man won't have to cross the line / Xunka' Utz'utz' Ni' -- Pexi Kola magic / Loxa Jiménes Lópes -- Talking box speaks / María Ernándes Kokov -- Dance of the perfumed woman / Tonik Nibak -- Third World (excerpt) / Cristina Rivera-Garza -- Cantares / Juan Gregorio Regino -- List of translators -- Source acknowledgments