Poetry. Latino/Latina Studies. Translated from the Spanish by Mark Weiss. Gaspar Orozco's extraordinary BOOK OF THE PEONY blew me away by a storm of quiet flame and blackness and nothing everythingness. I am writing this from Pont-Aven, where I have come to write about colonies and gatherings of artists, before regaining (what an inappropri word, ) and suddenly this poetry hits me in the Breton chill with--I can't say what--a dark blaze when I expected I have no idea what? I had been thinking ah, peony, like pens e, like a beloved and delicate pansy of thought, but this peony is nearer the chrysanthemum of Japanese writing from long ago. This remarkable poetry brings the long ago into nowness, if I can put it like that. It lights from far and also near, burning. --Mary Ann Caws