It's rare that a book of this kind is so moving and immediate. Herrera has the unusual capacity to write convincing political poems that are as personally felt as poems can be.


While reporters can give you the what, when, and where of a war, a poet with the enormous gifts of Juan Herrera can give you its soul. He does this by giving us the voices of both sides. The Janjaweed, who boast about their horrible deeds, and those who are their victims. Among them children with no father, no mother, no food, and no water.


Three children, two insects, two weapons and a TV--these voices take us to the deathworld of Darfur in this masterful new work by California poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera. With the Popol Vuh on his tongue, the author of Maya Drifter stretches out to a present day inferno of murder, dismemberment, underworld gods, where only the trickster lives to tell the tale. A beautiful and moving book.