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Morrow, John Andrew. Amerindian Elements in the Poetry of Ernesto Cardenal: Mythic Foundations of the Colloquial Narrative. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2010. 334 pp. ISBN-13:978-0-7734-3660-2.
The Nicaraguan Ernesto Cardenal (b. 1925) is undoubtedly one of the greatest Latin American poets bom in the last century. The award of the Premio Reina Sofia in Madrid last year and the translation of his life's work to many languages make clear his extraordinary stature as a world-class artist. In the last few years, several books have been added to the scholarly treatment of Cardenal's work, including the one under review and Morrow's most recent Religion and Revolution: Spiritual and Political Islam in Ernesto Cardenal (Newcastle, UK, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012).
Morrow deserves credit for raising "the Amerindian elements" of Cardenal's poetry to the attention of academic readers. As the author of the first full treatment of his topic, he enjoys a certain freedom, while at the same time he has to take into consideration a large number of excellent international critics who have addressed multiple aspects of the poet's abundant production-a tall order. While the title of Morrow's book refers to a theme, it analyzes mostly three key collections of Cardenal's poetry: Homenaje a los indios americanos (Homage to the American Indians, 1969), Los ovnis de oro: poemas indios (Golden UFOs: The Indian Poems; 1991), and Cántico cósmico (Cosmic Canticle, 1989). The first book was recast in the second, a more substantive undertaking, and while Cántico was published before Los ovnis...