What's in a name, paperback/ana luisa amaral

Description With the elliptical looping of a butterfly alighting on ones sleeve, the poems of Ana Lui sa Amaral arrive as small hypnotic miracles.

Spare and beautiful in a way reminiscent both of Szymborska and of Emily Dickinson (it comes as no surprise that Amaral is the leading Portuguese translator of Dickinson), these poems--in Margaret Jull Costas gorgeous English versions--seamlessly interweave the everyday with the dreamlike and ask Whats in a name? How solid is a name if answered to, Amaral answers, but like the Rose--no, like its perfume: ungovernable.

There is much freedom within Amarals poetry, room for mysteries to multiply, and yet her beautiful lines are as clear as water: And that time of smiles Which does, incidentally, really exist, I swear, as does the fire And the invisible sea, which with nothing will agree.