Beneath the Spanish

Beneath the Spanish tracks the way that languages intersect and inform each other, and how language and music shapes experience. Moving across landscapes from Puerto Rico to Manhattan to Morocco, these poems are one man's history and a song that begs to be performed. From "Ay Bendito, Que Vaina": Cuneiform tablet inside, The maracas pencil orality of remembered places, the night stars, the hammock, yucayeques like beehives, a river crab came to my feet to talk with its mouth legs, trembling like castanets. Victor Hernández Cruz is the author of several collections of poetry including, most recently, The Mountain in the Sea and In the Shadow of Al-Andalus. Featured in Bill Moyers's Language of Life series, Cruz's collection, Maraca, was a finalist for the Lenore Marshall and Griffin Poetry Prizes. He divides his time between Morocco and his native Puerto Rico.