Nancy Morejón, an indispensable voice in contemporary Cuban poetry, has produced a book whose core centers on the people, experience, and landscape of the city. She has said “ I was born in Havana and for me the city is inside my poetic art, cities fascinate me.” In Before the Mirror, The City Morejon captures the tastes and colors that give this city and its people their unique character. “Morejon’s poetry is infused with an understanding of her African heritage and modern Cuban identity. Her poems capture the essence of encounters with family, friends, literature, art, landscapes, politics, history, and Cuban reality. Her poems are lyrical, compassionate, complex and dazzling in their subtleties. This fine translated version of her work will encourage more research, more critical analysis and more dialog among scholars of poetry and Latin American culture.” ―Jayne Cortez “Nancy Morejon’s poetry gives us a mighty Cuba. A laughing Cuba. A determined Cuba. I see the politics of people’s eyes. Hands. Bodies. Living. Surviving. Being. Walking in beauty in their country. Undefeated.” ―Sonia Sanchez “A collection of exquisite sensibility, masterfully edited by Juanamaría Cordones-Cook and translated by David Frye. In these poems, Nancy Morejón's voice dazzles and moves us. She carries us off to a luminous island and an unforgettable Havana. I am moved by this book, by this poetry, and by the voice of one of the great poets of the Americas.” ―Marjorie Agosin Nancy Morejon is one of the best-known poets of Cuba. Her work addresses contemporary issues of ethnicity, gender, history, and Afro-Cuban identity. She is currently the Director of Caribbean Studies at Casa de las Americas in Havana, Cuba. David Frye is a professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan and a translator of many books from Spanish. His recent works of translation include: Super Extra Grande , by Yoss, The Weeping Woman by Zoe Valdes, and Simone: A Novel by Eduardo Lalo. Juanamaria Cordones-Cook is a professor of Romance languages at the University of Missouri. Cordones-Cook extensive scholarly work includes research and publications on Spanish American writers and artists such as Luisa Valenzuela, Nancy Morejón, Jorge Luis Borges, Roberto Zurbano, and Belkis Ayón among others. THE CITY ON DISPLAY As the wee hours end, this squat city, laid out on display. . . ―Aimé Césaire Between the edges of the sidewalks, under the habits of a street corner song, in the rumble of peddlers’ cries from round the world, resides the heart of the city, tinged with hope. A tiny breeze, dark and gentle, comprehends the gazes of the men who carpenter, who cross the streets and watch their hair: The carpenters work with their hair dreadlocked, full of fire, and between their eyes, again, once more, the city is there to mollify her trees. This is the city who loves us for once and will give us at last the precise gift of her lips and her smile and the footsteps of school kids shouting poems as they leave school. And on top of it all it’s sunny in the city and no storms blow. Maybe the smoke rising from cigarettes and factory stacks, the lines of cars, the sight of stores, shop windows and guards and I feel slight as if I were walking over the face of this city soaked in tears, blessed by tears. This city with her golden sea waves, as loose and free as an overcast woeful September day. A COURTYARD IN HAVANA for Gerardo Fulleda León A courtyard in Havana, as Machado once maintained, is precious to recall. Gone the high walls, gone that undaunted rainbow gleam, gone the Sevillian flowers that grandmother so insisted on planting in every vase... A courtyard in Havana holds the bones of the dead for they are a broad treasure, a peasant’s aged seed. A courtyard, ah, where you can see so many stars.   NÉLIDA To the memory of Ángel Roberto Hernández Riverend It was the breeze of spring and Nélida, unspeaking, leaned out the balcony, every single day. Always just like that. And Nélida, as if at market stands, leaning out the balcony. Always just like that. Nélida bending over the rails of an ancient ownerless balcony, talking back at daybreak to the street seller’s cries, her voice not reaching my ears. Short and squat, from her dense skin vapor rose up to the moon. It was the breeze of Misiones knocking at door after door, asking for the shade of Nélida, short, tangled on the balcony with a flower at her temple. Forever just like that, elbows on the balcony. Pepe Romera would walk by, eyes downcast. There went Hilda Menchaca not taking her eyes off the big front door. There went everyone under the tangled vines, their bodies immersed in a river of sounds. There went a sea breeze jabbing like a scar. Always just like that. Ambling girl, little thing, crossing the loudvoiced barbershop of the Taylors: over the streetcorner, the mirror and khaki of Guillermo Number One. Manrique with its barbershop, the oldest one, and Little Guillermo inside, a minor, acco