From “one of the most brilliant poets of his generation” ( El Pais, Madrid) Spanish poet Luis Muñoz’s debut North American collection, translated by Idra Novey and Garth Greenwell. Sweet, surreal, and haunting, these poems examine both the frictions and elusiveness that can occur between self and others. The slowing down of time, the gentle observation of sunlight like “golden cookies on the bedspread” as you lie next to a lover. The feeling of solitude rendering you as small and still as a garbanzo bean, yearning as much for water and light as to continue being left alone. Luis Muñoz is a beloved and critically acclaimed Spanish poet and One Moment marks his American debut. The poems within are presented in their original Spanish and in English, translated by acclaimed writers and translators Idra Novey and Garth Greenwell. Formally inventive, at turns playful and strange, One Moment moves a kaleidoscopic eye from friends to lovers, one place to another, one moment to the next, the finite to the infinite. These are poems that delight in all the senses, and in the movement of the world around us. "Dylan Thomas said a good poem was 'a contribution to reality,' and that’s the phrase I kept thinking while reading One Moment, how each of Muñoz’s very, very good poems broadened my field of vision, then filled it—I could practically sense the earth expanding beneath my feet. Muñoz writes, 'With the orange finger / of his thinking / he draws pathways'—everywhere, this mineral clarity, this cartography of yearning-so-deep-trembles. It’s Andrade, it’s Donne, it’s Oppen. No one today sounds like this. It’s thrilling to encounter poetry this fresh, this undeniable." —Kaveh Akbar, New York Times bestselling author of Martyr and Pilgrim Bell "Luis Muñoz is a miniaturist writing amorous, sharp-pointed, sneakily clever poems. I love how his work penetrates, like a fine needle, the weird iridescence of human experience." —Henri Cole, Pulitzer-Prize winning author "These poems take moments of seeing, magnifying and illuminating what's seen in the way that Neruda's odes took small objects and adored them. 'With the orange finger/ of his thinking/ he draws pathways.' These are simple joys, simple pleasures, like the treasure hoard of a box in which one hides a compass, sea rocks, crayons, small toys and other found objects. The point is to attend to the minor miracles of sight, and Muñoz is a sensuous poet whose music creates a magical, lustrous surface. These translations of his singular and significant 'moment's' surprise and complicate our reading in ways that draw us deeper into the poet's vision." —D.A. Powell "Although Luis Muñoz’s poems are short, they are capacious in scope and soul. In the poem 'Love,' love is described as 'the size at first/of the precise cut/of the window.' In such a short poem, every word carries immense weight. 'At first' implies time, a future, and change, while 'precise cut' implies a future love that is absent of precision. Every poem in One Moment rewards reading, re-reading, and refracting to emerge at new insights, new moments." —Victoria Chang, author of With My Back to the World Praise for Luis Muñoz "Luis Muñoz tells us who we are by pointing to our absences. He is the investigator of that hardest thing: the quiet moment. Muñoz's tender attentiveness to moments made me think often of Machado." —Ilya Kaminsky, award-winning author of Deaf Republic “These brilliant poems haunt me, alter my sense of what a poem can be." —Frank Bidart, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Half-light "Here is a poet who understands the unrepeatability of everything, our isolation, our communion with others, what moves and what resists, eros and the ineffable. He is brilliant." —Carolyn Forché, author of What You Have Heard Is True "Never have I read work so companionable and desperate at once. This is what Wallace Stevens would call the 'intensest rendezvous,' the moment when the world finds a silent and sometimes terrifying shape. Only a spirit both fierce and gentle can illuminate experience this way, with such a delicate tenacity. If Muñoz offered me his hand for a walk to Hell, I'd take it." —Katie Peterson, author of Life in a Field Luis Muñoz is the author of seven books of poetry, including Vecindad . He has received the Ciudad de Córdoba, Generación del 27, and Ojo Crítico prizes, among others. He divides his time between Madrid and Iowa City, where he directs the Spanish-language creative writing MFA program at the University of Iowa. Idra Novey is the author of the poetry collection Soon and Wholly and the novel Take What You Need , named one of The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2023 and chosen as a finalist for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. She’s translated the work of numerous authors, including Clarice Lispector, Manoel de Barros, and Garous Abdolmalekian. Garth Greenwell is the author of Small Rain , which wo