The Enemy

"Rafael Campo is one of the most significant poets writing in America today. In exploring the complexities of his position--Cuban-American, gay, Harvard grad, physician, scrupulous observer of himself, of others, and of the worlds we inhabit--he has produced a richly textured, layered body of work, distinguished for its mastery of, and wrestling with, poetic form, as well as for its courage, compassion, and clarity. Hybrid--a mix of memory and desire, trust and fear, anger and love--he has always been death-haunted yet he speaks for what is alive and healing in American culture." Alicia Suskin Ostriker, author of No Heaven "Rafael Campo writes tough, questioning, rueful, exquisite, true-hearted poems that resist nostalgia while testing the transformative power of beauty. In perfectly wrought poem after poem, he explores the 'honor' of sacrifice and the breadth of human fidelities. The Enemy is surely Campo's best book yet."--Elizabeth Alexander, Yale University "Rafael Campo's The Enemy moves with naturalness, speed, and balance between experiences of domestic love--a couple of gay men, celebrating rites of daily ordinariness--and scenes from a doctor's life. We turn to Campo for frankness, freshness, and the tang of truth, and we are rewarded."--Rosanna Warren, author of Departure: Poems