The complexity of Legna Rodríguez’s poems lies concealed in their apparent simplicity, woven into the cultural, racial, and political complexity of being Cuban. Ribald and rough, they allow space for the crude materiality of our relations to self, to others, and to that which houses us. In their briefness, these poems are abrupt rather than fast. Eschatology is presented as part of love, but everything can eventually be (part of) something else. Katerina González Seligmann’s translations render these possibilities with faithfulness to their original language. This is not feel-good poetry. That’s why we love Legna.

—Cristián Gómez-Olivares