Intimate conversations, soliloquies, patches of burned diaries, existential definitions of beauty, pain, or personal discovery come together in Music for Bamboo Strings. A subtle tapestry of music imbues the story and cinematography of each poem. This bilingual collection by Cuban-American poet Carlos Pintado has been masterfully translated by Lawrence Schimel, a recipient of the 2023 Sundial Literary Translation Award. Música para cuerdas de bambú | Music for Bamboo Strings is a lyric journey through several cultures and themes: a reinterpretation of Kawabata's Snow Country or Vincent van Gogh's Wheatfields with Crows, for instance. These poems also evoke Pintado's quieter moments, while he's subdued by flickering flames in the small hours or captivated by a fleeting face in a crowd. Music for Bamboo Strings is a territory of fear and beauty that wonders what may be revealed through poetry and plots an emotional cartography of paths that might be followed.
