Reflections through the Convex Mirror of Time / Reflexiones tras el Espejo Convexo del Tiempo

It is one thing to read great poetry. It is another thing altogether to read poetry by a great man: prophet, historian, mentor and friend, world traveler; a man born in a time of war who would, in his actions and writings, rage against war, dream against war. Tony Mares in all his fullness is here, in a book that must be read as the world seems again to crack open. We need Tony’s voice and vision as never before. This book will be a classic, and blessed are those in whose hands this book falls. Demetria Martinez, author of The Block Captain’s Daughter

In August 1974, with Franco still in power, I organized an exceptional poetry reading by Ángel González, myself, Tony Mares, and Enrique Lamadrid to the musical accompaniment of Xavier Ribalta, a Catalán guitarist and songwriter, to finalize a summer seminar in Spain. Ribalta was banned from performing in public, and the entire poetry reading was illegal at that time, but it was private with no publicity. Afterward, Tony continued his research and travels around Spain to observe a society in the last days of a fascist dictatorship. Tony’s masterwork, this prodigious collection of poetry, in many ways began there. Gary Brower, editor of Malpais Review and author of The Book of Knots

In this tableau of poems, E. A. Tony Mares reconstructs the Spanish Civil War as the most iconic struggle of the twentieth century. Naming names, the poet tracks down and confronts the grand and petty players from all sides of that bloody conflict. From the refracted shards of language and the visceral, sensory details of the Spanish landscape, a towering vision emerges, leavened with the humility and humor that finally brings us home, to Tony’s home, Albuquerque’s Old Town Plaza. Michael A. Thomas, author of Hat Dance

Historical accounts through Mares’s poetic visions present the poet, intellectual, and resolanero through a critical public dialogue, in a manner that evokes the conversations he overheard his parents having about the Spanish Civil War in his childhood home near La Plaza Vieja, Albuquerque’s Old Town neighborhood. Mares draws the readers/eavesdroppers out of the corners and engages us to create our own musings and reminds us of the important role that poetry plays in keeping historical memory alive. The poems, illuminated by the twin flames of English and Spanish, present the same perspective but from a different angle. Or, as his camarada Tomás Atencio would say, ‘Es el mismo guante, nomás que alrevez’ (It is the same glove, inside out). Levi Romero, Inaugural New Mexico State Poet Laureate and author of A Poetry of Remembrance: New and Rejected Works