These poems by José Lezama Lima display the sudden turns of subject matter which are trademarks of the Cuban poet. “A Bridge, a Remarkable Bridge” and “Old Surrealist Ballad”brim with sudden flashes of image and metaphor. They exemplify the poet’s surreal system of image making through metaphoric language that he described as “oblique experience.” In these poems any anticipation for simple resolutions are thwarted by his baroque eccentricity, leaving readers feeling so enthralled as to take “shelter from a slice of violin melon.”
