With the elliptical looping of a butterfly alighting on one's sleeve, the poems of Ana Luisa Amaral arrive as small hypnotic miracles. Spare and beautiful in a way reminiscent both of Szymborska and of Emily Dickinson (it comes as no surprise that Amaral is the leading Portuguese translator of Dickinson), these poems - in Margaret Jull Costa's gorgeous English versions - seamlessly interweave the everyday with the dreamlike and ask What's in a name?""How solid is a name if answered to," Amaral answers, but "like the Rose - no, like its perfume: ungovernable. Free." There is much freedom within Amaral's poetry, room for mysteries to multiply, and yet her beautiful lines are as clear as water: And that time of smiles Which does, incidentally, really exist, I swear, as does the fire And the invisible sea, which with nothing will agree " | What's In A Name by Ana Luisa Amaral, Paperback | Indigo Chapters