Flight of the Quetzal by Evangeline Sanders

In the best literature of travel, we find not only insightful and detailed descriptions of foreign lands and cultures, but also convincing and illuminating accounts of how the writer herself has come to better know herself, and been changed, through her experiences in that new place. In these sharp-eyed and beautifully musical poems, Evangeline Sanders evokes the complex history and rich culture of Guatemala, and also enacts, with great sensitivity and self-awareness, the fundamental ambivalence lodged in the heart of every traveler, the inescapable sense that however watchful and respectful she may be, the visitor is always an “other,” always on the outside looking in. These are delightful poems, full of vigor and life—and wisdom.

–Joel Brouwer

From an American English-speaking child’s early lessons in Spanish to K’iche, the fallen Mayan king transformed into the color-drenched quetzal flying back into the battle; from the swirling spaces between memory and myth, Flight of the Quetzal is on a mission, literally, to find out what it means to enter another culture—its brutal histories and slippery language; its relics, terrain, water, insects, voices.  Like Guatemala’s Volcán de Fuego, “cocked like a musket on the shoulder of the valley,” these poems are shot through with vivid detail that lays bare the price and privilege of trafficking in the “other” and managing to return, richer for the journey.

–Robin Behn