Watchword

"Both Dante and Dickinson preside over Watchword, Pura Lopéz Colomé's brilliant 'notes that day by day gather / something profound and gentle, eternal, / melodious, imagined, maternal' She reminds us just how worldly the otherworldly is. Forrest Gander's translation rings flawless and true."—John Ashbery

"Widely acknowledged and celebrated as a poet of lyric intensity and concision, Pura Lopéz Colomé here attains a new level of engagement with the poetics of perception in a world marked at once by harrowing personal experience and the transformative revelations of things as they are. Truly a splendid 'garden / of signs within signs.'"—Michael Palmer

"Watchword is a thought- and emotion-provoking book in that the subtext of several poems is a personal struggle with cancer whereas the texts themselves gander widely and maintain a kind of height that transcends the individual human condition."—John Taylor, Antioch Review

"Searching for 'divine narration,' this poet drums on the heart of oblivion."—Jeffrey Cyphers Wright, Brooklyn Rail

"Gander observes that López Colomé's poetry has hermetic qualities, but he seems to want to let us in. His careful set of choices in the act of translation complements this attitude, allowing him to heighten the warmth in English even as he retains the discipline of López Colomé's movements."—Kristin Dykstra, BOMBsite