[Ernesto Cardenal's] long narrative poem, El estrecho dudoso (1966), has not been adequately studied to date as an artistic whole. Like Pablo Neruda … in Canto General (1950), Cardenal employs the epic form in his poem to effectively criticize the socio-political realities of Nicaragua prior to the overthrow of the Somoza regime while recreating the traditional history of the colonization of Central America by viewing it as a search for social justice as much as an attempt to find an inland channel through which passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean could be achieved. Some critics have seen this account in verse of the first century of Spanish colonization as an indirect attack on the military dictatorships and oligarchies (such as the Somoza dynasty) which have dominated most of the region. However, they do not go beyond this observation to appreciate fully the intricate artistry with which Cardenal has intertwined...