Moonmilk and Other Poems (Ragged Sky Poetry)

These poems are short dances under the crescent moon. They carry a dreamy perfume that is light in the air. There are ancestors and tricksters around every corner. Hernández Peña's influences are the daily papers and his ancient Pre-Columbian family's posited tales all artfully played in stop-motion and flute-whistle. "To write poetry, Carlos Hernández Peña gives up his native Spanish and uses English-his 'alien language.' This otherness of his English allows him to write, as he says, 'from another side of the world,' aquellos ojos verdes, where tarantulas are amicable drunks and bottles are bruised. His wild new language keeps him awake 'through a white night' and wakens us to surprising lands where he asks whales to 'name this living' and icicles to breathe on our shoulders. His second tongue makes him puzzle the cold walrus and send the 'quetzal morning' flashing before our eyes. His new speech allows Hernández Peña to retell the old riddles in a new world: the 'Möbius strip confection' becomes the 'giant waves' that 'spin a riddle between birth and death.' We recognize his other world in our own mouths, and taste it new as 'sparks of snow.'" -Lois Marie Harrod, author of Put Your Sorry Side Out