A Nation of Poets

Writings from the Poetry Workshops of Nicaragua

Kent Johnson, tr.

A Nation of Poets represents the first translation of Sandinista poets from revolutionary Nicaragua.  These are the poems of the common people, written in poetry workshops created by the Sandinistas before the revolution.  The book also contains an interview with Father Ernesto Cardenal, Minister of Culture of Nicaragua, and sponsor of the workshops. 

Kent Johnson has also co-edited Beneath a Single Moon: Buddhism in Contemporary American Poetry (Shambhala, 1991) and Third Wave: The New Russian Poetry (Michigan, 1992).  He was later involved in a controversy surrounding the works of Araki Yasusada, a Japanese poet who supposedly authored Doubled Flowering, a notebook collection relating to the Japanese nuclear holocaust (Roof, 1997). 

“Poetry does not speak from the mouth of a gun.  But ‘under the gun’ great poetry often comes from the mouths of common people, as is the case in this brave volume from Nicaragua.”—Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I want a son, and to feel the joy
of being a mother.
To wash him every day, dress him,
powder him, give him to drink
and his food at the right hour.
Gaze at him and distinguish who he looks like most—
me or my lover?
Dream that when he has grown
he shall struggle for the freedom of my people.
             —“The Son”, Gloria Guevara

5½ x 8½ inches • 118 pages • ISBN 0-931122-40-6 • $5.95