Trusting on the Wide Air: Poems of Uruguay

Editors: Laura Chalar & Jesse Lee Kercheval

Publisher: Diálogos (2019)

Trusting on the Wide Air: Poems of Uruguay gathers together the best of contemporary and historical Uruguayan poetry. Uruguay has always been a country of poets and this collection gathers generation after generation, with a few visiting poets folded in as well. Together, they take us on a poetic tour of this smallest Spanish speaking country in South America. Poem by poem, they take us through the streets of the old city and the art deco towers of Montevideo, move effortlessly along the long stretches of sand beaches, visit the interior with its quiet towns and rain lashed lakes, watch the day change from a hot summer afternoon to a tango filled night. The anthology’s title comes from the Jules Supervielle’s poem “Montevideo” where “The scent of eucalyptus / Trusted itself to the wide air” and in these poems we smell the eucalyptus and jacaranda, taste the mate and sweet alfajores, hear the candombe drums, feel what it means to be in Uruguay. Trusting on the Wide Air: Poems of Uruguay is an anthology of poetry of place and that place is Uruguay.