Gathers selected poems from each period in the thirty-year career of the internationally-known Spanish poet A member of Spain's Generation of 1950, Gonzalez writes with simplicity, restraint, and occasional humor about social injustice and the contradictions and trivialities of daily life. His work ranges from the optimism of "The earth/ persists in being beautiful" to the pessimism of a world where our "parachutes will not open" and our problems will proliferate like rats. While confirming the "utter uselessness of all words" in one poem, in another he concedes that the ink of a poet can impregnate more effectively than semen. Gonzalez, who has lived in the United States since 1974, enjoys the irony of being called a realist by critics when to his relatives his literary occupation is anything but realistic. The selections are from nine volumes of the author's work and include a useful chronology. Recommended for all poetry collections. - Jack Shreve, Allegany Community Coll., Cumberland, Md. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. Acoma, New Mexico, December, 5:15 P.m. Again Astonishing World Autumn Sent The Battlefield Before I Could Call Myself Angel Gonzalez Birthday The Birthday Of Love Cemetery In Colliure The Christ Of Velazquez City Counter-order (poetics That I Announce On Certain Days) The Day Had Gone The Days Were Like That Death In The Evening December The Defeated One Diatribe Against The Dead Dogs Against The Moon Elected By Acclamation Erudites On Campus A Fall Day, Texas First Evocation The Future Harsh World Here, Madrid, 1954 Hope Horoscope For A Forgotten Dictator Human Geography I Am Bartok Of Everything I Come From War I Look At My Hand I Snack On Some Afternoons Inventory Of Places Propitious For Love The Lesson Of Literature Lessons Of Things Letter Without Goodbye Love Dressed In White Magic Realism The Mall Miracle Of The Light The Music In The Walls Reverberates My Profound Vocation Ode To The New Bards Of The Field Or Sea Of Two Words Now Made Clear On Saturdays, The Prostitutes Get Up Very Early To Get Ready Opulent Civilization Order Park For The Dead Pearl Of The Antilles Plaza With Towers And Palaces Poetics Preamble To Silence Public Garden With Particular Legs Residential Zone Revelation The Scandalous Rose Science As Affliction Second Evocation Seriously Shepherd Of Winds So It Seems The So-called Twilight Sometimes Sometimes, In October, That's What Happens Sonata For Violin Solo Summer In Slumville Sunday Symbol That River Ran Backwards That's Enough For Me This Moment Through Here A River Passes To Poetry To Some Poets Today A Traveler's Notes Twilight, Albuquerque, Fall Twilight, Albuquerque, Summer Useless Words Whatever You Want Winter The Word Words Almost Forgotten Words Taken From A Painting By Jose Hernandez Yesterday Zero City -- Table of Poems from Poem Finder® Used Book in Good Condition