This volume focuses on the life and work of Rhina P. Espaillat, an extraordinarily observant lyric poet who applies ideals of musicality, metaphor, and meaning to formally crafted verse that connects personal experience to universal themes.Born in the Dominican Republic, Espaillat was seven years old when her family was granted political asylum in the United States during the brutal dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. She published her first poems in Ladies' Home Journal at age fifteen, and after graduating from college went on to marry, teach, raise a family, and maintain a literary career spanning more than seven decades. Having cultivated a fluent and scholarly bilingualism throughout her life, Espaillat also became a gifted translator of works by numerous important poets of the Spanish- and English speaking worlds, including Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, St. John of the Cross, Robert Frost and Richard Wilbur.THE COLOSSEUM CRITICAL INTRODUCTION SERIESEach title in the Colosseum Critical Introduction Series provides a thorough study of the life and work of an important American writer who has sought to renew the craft and deepen the intellectual and spiritual dimensions of contemporary poetry. Intended to be at once brief and compelling, these introductory texts will help readers find their way into some of the best voices in the literature of our day.