Cosmic Canticle

In this epic poem, Cardenal explores Latin American history by relating the evolution of the universe to the development of human understanding. Throughout, Cardenal blends the visible and the invisible, science and poetry, religion and nature, in 43 autonomous yet integrated cantos."Cosmic Canticle is a towering piece of work, a quite extraordinary achievement."Harold Pinter"This epic will be compared to Nerudas Canto General. . . . Heady stuff.""Library Journal"Ernesto Cardenal is one of the most important poets writing today. He is one of the giants, in the tradition of Neruda and Guillen. And like all those bearers of a truly human truly transforming art, he is deeply political, deeply committed to struggle, and absolutely clear that to be art, rather than aint, the song must be truth to be beauty."Amiri Baraka"Priest and Nicaraguan revolutionary as well as poet, Cardenal epitomizes what makes literature live in Central America today.""Booklist"Like Pablo Neruda, the Nobel Prize-winning poet from Chile, Cardenal combines politics and poetry while speaking forthrightly about the history of exploitation in the Americas.""National Catholic Reporter"This is much more than just another poets collection of singular verse: Cardenal spent more than 30 years producing this epic, which relates Latin American history to the evolution of human understanding. More than 40 cantos in English are provocative creations.""The BookwatchThe towering figure of Latin American poetry, Ernesto Cardenal was born on January 10, 1925, in Granada, Nicaragua. In 1965, he was ordained a priest. He served as Minister of Culture for theSandinista government from 1979 to 1988. He is currently the director of Casa de los Tres Mundos, a cultural organization in Granada, Nicaragua. Cardenal is the author of more than 60 volumes of poetry, essays, and criticism.