These exquisite love poems, some of them clearly addressed to women, were written by the visionary and passionate genius of Mexican letters, the seventeenth-century nun Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. In this volume they are translated into the idiom of our own time by poets Joan Larkin and Jaime Manrique. Some of them are rooted in Renaissance courtly conventions; others are startlingly ahead of their time, seemingly modern in the naked power of the complex sexual feelings they address.

Translated by: Joan Larkin, Jaime Manrique