Nine Coins / Nueve Monedas

"Cuban-American Pintado, recipient of the Paz Prize for Poetry, meditates on myths, legends, labyrinths, and the relationships between love, fears, and dreams in this bilingual collection."
--"Publishers Weekly," Fall 2015 Announcements
"The urgency and presence in Pintado's poems feel as if [...]
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"Cuban-American Pintado, recipient of the Paz Prize for Poetry, meditates on myths, legends, labyrinths, and the relationships between love, fears, and dreams in this bilingual collection."
--"Publishers Weekly," Fall 2015 Announcements
"The urgency and presence in Pintado's poems feel as if the poet's very life depended on writing them. They are possessed by a unique, intangible quality that arrests the reader and commands attention. His work is intimate yet boundless, moving easily between form and free verse, prose poems and long poems, whether capturing the everyday streets of Miami Beach or leading us into the mythic and mystical worlds of his imagination."
--Richard Blanco, author of "The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood"
Translated by Hilary Vaughn Dobel.
"Nine Coins/Nueve monedas" is a palimpsest of love, fears, dreams, and the intimate landscapes where the author seeks refuge. These poems appear like small islands of salvation, covered with the brief splendor of the coins people sometimes grab hold of, taking the form of a very personal and often devastating map. Each poem is a song at the edge of an abyss; an illusory gold coin obtained as a revelation; a song of hope and understanding. The volume's dreamlike geography prompts the reader to revisit the thread, the labyrinth, and the Minotaur s legends. The night streets of South Beach, Alexandria, and many other cities, lit by the fading torches, seem to guide us in conversation with characters who are long dead.
The Paz Prize for Poetry is presented by the National Poetry Series and The Center at Miami Dade College. This annual award--named in the spirit of the late Nobel Prize-winning poet, Octavio Paz--honors a previously unpublished book of poetry written originally in Spanish by an American resident. An open competition is held each May, when an esteemed Spanish-speaking poet selects a winning manuscript. The book will be published in a bilingual edition by Akashic Books. The winning poet will also receive a $2,000 cash prize.
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