90 Miles

These poems, at once exuberant and sophisticated, are driven by the desire to preserve. Suarez holds onto the precious country of family, and he skillfully recounts its history. He is constantly aware of his environment, both what it is and what it is not. How the language is his and is not. He explores the magic and wonder of the everyday where everything is new and is not new. This is poetry of grand appetites, longing to take it all in everywhere, to savor the rich sweetness of this world.

* Jim Daniels *

Virgil Suarez has emerged as a major voice in Cuban American literature, as this collection clearly demonstrates. Suarez is a poet of praise: for his working-class immigrant parents, for the music of Cuba, for the mangos of his beloved island. His range of reference is impressive; Li Po, Shakespeare, J. Edgar Hoover, and many others walk through the Habana of his poetic imagination. Virgil Suarez is a trustworthy guide in this world, and any other.

* Martin Espada *

Lorea sits down companionably on the sofa in grieving households; the poet's grandfather conjures lightning and collects it in jars in Havana - and the ninety miles of water that separate Cuba from the U.S. are traversed in a heartbeat.

* Carol Muske-Dukes *

Suarez is a poet of witness, and therefore, a moral compass for our times. . . . There is a lush oddnes of diction here that comes only from those who know the language second. . . . Most striking . . . is the poet's ability to sustain the moments of many of these poems easily over the course of sixty or more lines so that we become emotional participants, caught up in an urgent and necessary movement towards stunning inevitabilities that, in these dangerous days, we cannot do without.

* Bruce Weigl *

Suarez's voice is a heartbreaking combination of outrage and longing . . . '90 Miles', a selection of one poet's previous collections of poetry, is a rarity in the industry. That this poet is Latino is additional cause for celebration and sincere pride.

* El Paso Times *

His attention to detail is a delight, and his energetic voice, with the tint of his native tongue, is powerful and compelling. . . . Suarez is one of today's more important Latino voices, and this volume should be included in any serious contemporary poetry collection.

* Library Journal *

The music of the poems oscillates internally between the fluidity of a few Spanish words and the harsher syllables of English, offering a compelling sense of dislocation, true to the book's primary concerns.

* ForeWord Magazine