Eliana Rivero

I have to highlight Eliana Rivero, a great poet. I saw her work in Sugar Mule Literary Magazine issue 15 here, which highlighted Cuban poetry. Her poems were an excerpt from Five Cubana Trips. They immediately caught the eye, and they really draw you in, beautiful and with a sense of what Borges didn't write about, but what was there around him.


Here's an excerpt:

5- Finally El Yunque, Puerto Rico


Rain forests,
       mountains covered with orchids:
the ocean was so close
       we heard the surf outside the kitchen.

       Our guests engaged in games, played dominoes
until one could not see [...]

In the mountains we got drenched in the drizzle,
  the dew from all those bromeliaceas:,
purple and pink and slightly blue
       their blossoms. 

  I ate
       the sweetest pineapple by the side of the road.
Sugar cane fields extended in the distance. [...]