Books – Don Cellini

Ink and Water: Sketches of Bacalar

Author Claire Joysmith meditates on the several shades of blue that make up the Laguna de siete azules in Bacalar, Mexico. $19.99

The Lady and the Unicorn

La presente obra obtuvo el premio de poesía en los XII Juegos Florales Ramon López Velarde 2019, en Jerez Zacatecas. Así mismo, fue beneficiaria del programa ARTE RESILIENTE 2020 convocado por la Secretaria de Cultura de Coahuila para hacer posible su edición electrónica. This work won the poetry prize at the XII Ramon López Velarde […]

Book of Mishaps

Venezuela is a country in crisis. The economic crisis has produced hyperinflation and prices have risen by more than 6,000%. Millions of citizens do not have access to basic health care and adequate nutrition. Police practices are brutal. With all this happening simultaneously, it’s no surprise that more than 5.5 million citizens have left Venezuela, […]

Approximations

Matched pairs of spare, elegant poems in English and Spanish, generously illustrated (24 pages) with the author’s original and stunning photography

Inkblots

The dual-nature of Don Cellini’s book–with poems in Spanish and English and mirror-image photos–is reinforced by its twin vertices of people and nature, humor and melancholy, solitude and solidarity. The language is so crisp and clean and polished that the poems simply beg to be read out loud. ¡Bravo! –Sandra Kingery, translator Of My Real […]

Translate Into English

Translate into English is framed with grammatical instructions from a turn-of-the-century Spanish lesson book. Possessing a rare elegance and integrity, Cellini’s poems are intelligent and clever while capturing subtle emotions. From the compelling concept to the fine execution of these poetic vignettes—each work, each poem, every page is necessary to the whole. And the whole […]

Candidates for Sainthood and other Sinners

This collection of poems explores the thin line between saint and sinner. The poet asks the reader to consider, “Who is the saint here? Who is the sinner?” A few well-known people appear in poems as well as a few genuine saints, but mostly the poems explore the saints and sinners and everyday folks that […]

Stone Poems

Stepping stones, paving stones, Rolling Stones, crushed stone, building stone, gemstones, birthstone, healing stones, tombstone, millstone, whetstone, precious stones, kidney stones, gravestones, beach stones, massage stones, landscape stones, Stone Mountain, keystone, cornerstone, touchstone, grinding stone, sacred stones, headstone, Rune Stones. There is Stone Age, stone-broke, stonecutter, stone ground, stone fruit, Stonehenge, stonemason, stone soup. And […]

Piedra Poemas

Las piedras han servido en la historia de la humanidad para producir el fuego o construir grandes templos, nos han enseñado a alabar a Dios o las hemos utilizado para golpear. A veces, pueden ser semejantes a la carga de muchas culpas o recordarnos a nuestros ancestros que han muerto. Así es la fuerza de […]

Outside the Garden

Cellini’s most recent and perhaps his most personal collection of poems.

Elias Nandino

Though Latin America has a strong tradition of poetry, many of its best poets remain untranslated in the United States. Elkas Nandino (1900–1993) was a Mexican poet who made his living as a surgeon and physician. He published twenty volumes of poetry in his lifetime, work often focused on solitude, eroticism, and love. In recognition […]

Images for an annunciation

The first international congress in honor of the Mexican poet Elías Nandino (1900-1993) was held in Guadalajara in October 2008. Nandino was a physician and poet who is known, not only for the poetry he published during his lifetime, but also for his support of young poets throughout his career. Through his workshops and his […]

Desire I Remember but love, no

What happens when a young poet in Mexico City writes about his coming out experiences? In No recuerdo el amor sino el deseo / Desire I remember but love, no the author shares these first steps: new romances, one-night-stands, unreturned phone calls, erotic adventures and disillusionments. What we discover is that these experiences are not […]

The Silence of the Hours

Poet Amanda Reverón maintains a blog. Her writing habit is to begin a new book of poems each January 1st and end it on December 31st. The translator discovered El Silencio de las Horas / The Silence of the Hours a few months into the new year. Cellini immediately translated and published three of the […]

Migrare Mutare – Migrate Mutate

This bilingual poetry collection written in Spanish by Rossy Evelin Lima and translated by Don Cellini, represents the very best of the new transnational literature in North America. In recent years the poetry of Rossy Evelin Lima has become a symbol of a borderless identity that challenges any preconceptions and aesthetic assumptions. Este libro de […]