"[Jose Garcia Villa's] poems flaunted their un-Americanness; his image-repertoire of bright shores and skulls, of antique ant and spiritual centipede, Christs and terrible heroes, was abstracted from the landscape and history of the country he left behind. This landscape and this history were not forgotten in Villa’s poetry, but they were present only as the blurred, indistinct background to his figures. In turning to poetry, he had not only turned away from empirical observation, from history and social milieu: he had discovered ‘the bright / the beautiful the terrible Accost.'" Robert Nery • Cordite Poetry Review

---