" Only the Road is a major cultural intervention at a crucial time when both the Spanish- and English-speaking literary world and beyond may experience--be moved by, delight in, weep with--the power and historical importance of a forceful body of work that defines an immense cultural legacy. This is a magnificent time to open the floodgates of a further-to-be-known poetry; a magnificent tome to enhance our détente with Cuba. Cuba: its hopes and fears, its dreams, its promise, its extraordinary intellectual rigor, its poetic literacy and resistance, its survival, a poetry captured here of over eight decades, entangled with a unique and complicated history, that anyone paying attention today cannot ignore. Margaret Randall, prodigious poet, writer, thinker, translator, editor, teacher, activist has accomplished a task of a lifetime. She has given full voice to this small island's powerfully diverse universe. The poets here are individually--racially, politically, sexually--complex, with life stories that are captured here as well, human and heroic. Randall exhibits great care and integrity to the task. Brilliant work.
'see that you don't abandon them./islands are imaginary worlds./cut from the sea. they journey in the loneliness of rootless lands.' (Reina Maria Rodriquez)" .