Cardenal patterned his later work after the texts of Ezra Pound, flawed champion of the "documentary" poem. Behind Pound stood Dante, whose cries against encroaching merchant capitalism expressed the spirit of old radical Christianity. Pound hated the modern order but tripped on his fondness for rigid societies (ancient China, fascist Italy) where, he imagined, poets earned special favor. Cardenal has freed himself from this last artistic vanity…. Without illusions about some Golden Age …, he has recalled the virtues of agrarian communism, brought them forward as proof of Latin America's past and its potential. The poet of liberation theology returns the narrative to its ancient purpose—history, myth, and ritual wrapped up in one. Cardenal the revolutionary activist and modern writer advances the day when poetry will be made by the people in common.

But how does all this square with Christianity, the priesthood in particular, based as it...