Sea of Broken Mirrors

Award-winning poet, novelist and translator’s new collection Sea of Broken Mirrors is a book of questions and incantations. Full of lush sonics and surreal yet contemporary imagery, the book offers Medina’s take on biblical canticles. His work is grounded in descriptions of Vermont’s nature --still beautiful despite the ravages of global warming--as well as memories of his youth and family. Born in Cuba and raised there until the age of twelve, Medina infuses his work with Cuban culture. For him, cultural identity is not a static reality, but a vessel riding the sea into the unknown. The poems explore how the diminishment of self (indeed, its ultimate disappearance) can be a way of engaging with the world, the ultimate essence of which is found in the language of poetry.

Pablo Medina was born in Havana, Cuba, and grew up in New York City. He is the author of more than twenty published works, including poetry, fiction, works in translation, and a memoir. Medina is the recipient of numerous honors and awards for his writing and translations, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund. He has taught at a number of American colleges and universities, most recently the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. With poet Mark Statman, Medina translated Federico García Lorca’s Poet in New York (Grove Press, 2008) a translation that John Ashbery described as ＂the definitive version of Lorca’s masterpiece.＂