Carlos Germán Belli is recognized around the world as one of the most original contemporary Hispanic poets. Acclaimed for a linguistic virtuosity that distinguishes him from other poets in contemporary Peru, his poems reflect a society in deep crisis. Belli's poetry portrays situations at odds with the modern world, combining several discordant elements--technological terminology, seventeenth-century Spanish Golden Age diction and meter, classic or archaic vocabulary, syntax characterized by hyperbaton and ellipsis, epithets, and colloquial Peruvian Spanish. He also uses irony and black humor to strongly criticize the injustices of Peruvian society. Belli's mature poetry turns toward a more metaphysical and intimate tone; his voice seems more content and hopeful, perhaps because of his being able to exercise fully his passion for writing. In addition to his work as a poet, Belli is widely known as a translator into Spanish of poems by André Breton, Paul...