What's in a Name

With the elliptical looping of a butterfly alighting on one's sleeve, the poems of Ana Lui'sa Amaral arrive as small hypnotic miracles. Spare and beautiful in a way reminiscent both of Szymborska and of Emily Dickinson (it comes as no surprise that Amaral is the leading Portuguese translator of Dickinson), these poems-in Margaret Jull Costa's gorgeous English versions-seamlessly interweave the everyday with the dreamlike and ask 'What's in a name?'