Cage

Poetry. Translated from the Portuguese by Alexis Levitin. In this first-ever bilingual edition of CAGE, eminent Brazilian poet Astrid Cabral is an insightful and irreverent guide to the natural world, leading the beguiled reader through landscapes of rare and surprising beauty. From serpents to seahorses, and from the wilds of the Amazon to the orderly realm of suburbia, these poems urge us to consider our surroundings with empathy and attentiveness. Cabral's complex, multifaceted verse glints with compressed energy, offering a densely layered vision in which simplicity is deceptive and conclusions are likely to be double-edged. A poet of considerable imaginative gifts and metaphysical flair, Astrid Cabral has produced a work of cauterizing beauty. In this perfectly orchestrated volume, each poem enriches and expands the poems that surround it.

Astrid Cabral FTlix de Sousa is a native of Brazil. She is one of the most eminent contemporary poets in her country and in the Portuguese language. During the 1950s she was a member of the innovative literary movement known as Clube da Madrugada. She holds a degree in English from Institute Brazil-United States. In 1962 she joined the faculty of the University of Brasilia, but resigned for political reasons following the military coup of 1964. With the reestablishment of democracy in 1988, she was able to resume her academic career. Her most important works of poetry include: Ponto de cruz (1979), Torna-viagem (1981), Litpo de Alice: poemas, 1980-1983 (1986), Visgo da terra (1986), ROs desgarrada (1994), De dTu em dTu (1998), Intramuros (1998) and Rasos d'ßgua (2003).