"So extraordinarily clear, so connected to the primitive I imagine I am . . . participating in a vision already lost to the world." —William Carlos Williams

The microgram is collected, pondered upon, and defined in this quiet classic of Ecuadorian literature.

In the alphabet of things
the snail invents
the penultimate letter.

Jorge Carrera Andrade (1902–1978) has been recognized as one of the most important Latin American poets of the twentieth century.

Alejandro de Acosta and Joshua Beckman co-translated Carlos Oquendo de Amat's 5 Meters of Poems. Beckman's translation of Tomaž Šalamun's Poker was a finalist for the PEN/America Poetry in Translation Award.

Translated by: Alejandro de Acosta, Joshua Beckman