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Sea of Broken Mirrors

Sea of Broken Mirrors

Pablo Medina

Paper: ISBN 978-1-934909-78-2 $18

88 Pages

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Award-winning poet, novelist and translator Pablo Medina’s new collection Sea of Broken Mirrors is a book of questions and incantations. Full of lush sonics and surreal yet contemporary imagery, the book offers Medina’s take on biblical canticles. His work is grounded in descriptions of Vermont’s nature —still beautiful despite the ravages of global warming—as well as memories of his youth and family. Born in Cuba and raised there until the age of twelve, Medina infuses his work with Cuban culture. For him, cultural identity is not a static reality, but a vessel riding the sea into the unknown.  The poems explore how the diminishment of self (indeed, its ultimate disappearance) can be a way of engaging with the world, the ultimate essence of which is found in the language of poetry.

What critics say:

“I’m so heartened by the work of Pablo Medina. So challenged by the formal rigor and deep compassion (and play!) of his poetry and his supple mind and critique. Sea of Broken Mirrors is a new chapter in an ever shifting and abundant career marked by curiosity, pragmatism, and hope. Yes. Hope. I see it here too. And it makes me want to keep writing. To keep going.”—Gabrielle Calvocoressi

“The poems in Sea of Broken Mirrors are equally visceral, physical and spiritual.  In this world, we find love of the rain, umbrellas, and those who walk beneath them, which is every one of us.  But unlike most of us, Pablo Medina sees worlds beyond worlds.  People transform into flora and fauna, God is a gentleman in tweeds and a lamp leads to the moon which leads to the infinite.  The marvel of this work is that poems so rife with flesh and blood can also joyfully embrace the soul.  Pablo Medina is unsurpassed as a poet of faith, imagination and, above all, compassion.” —John Skoyles