Oranges in Times of Moon by Carlos Reyes-Manzo

[Susana]

I had a few messages back and forth a few weeks ago with the author of this book on LinkedIn concerning poetry and documentary photography and we ended up trading books. This is a rather intense series of poems, published in 2006, originally written in Spanish, with the English translations on facing pages. They are political poems largely, a particular interest of mine, written by Amnesty International's first poet-in-residence. But there are some beautiful poems about love in here too, and even a poem about antiquing in Portobello on a Saturday. These are, however, poems largely in homage to the forgotten, the dispossessed, and if that appeals to you, as it does to me, you should try to get this book.

Reyes-Manzo has a compelling biography. As a socialist photographer in Chile, he was imprisoned and tortured by Pinochet, exiled to Panama, and kidnapped eventually to be forcibly returned to Chile. He escaped at Heathrow airport, was aided by Amnesty International, and has lived and worked in London ever since. I tried to find an excerpt online to give a flavor of the book, but found instead of a text, an MP3 file:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio...

My favorite stanza, from "Panama and the lord," goes:

Mamita United
with tropical sweat
waters yellow bananas
and harvests green dollars.

Oranges In Times Of Moon

[Jen]

Wow, this sounds fascinating. Arranging a swap was a good idea. It appears to be yet another book that's hard to get ahold of.

I had no idea Amnesty International had poets in residence.

[Susana]

I didn't realize it either, but it's a great way to get political poetry out there. I think some of the book resellers like Abebooks would be more likely to have this than Amazon which is charging a fortune for it. And libraries might also be a resource. The pricing on Amazon does get crazy sometimes for older books (and variant). I once saw one of my older chapbooks listed for about $160, a book that could still be purchased for about $12 from the publisher!