I sing to that bird knowing he won’t sing back (NWVS # 128) by Marina Carreira

“Key to the fado sound is saudade, a feeling of longing or lament. Marina Carreira’s verses are teeming with such lament. But like the fado singers from her family’s motherland, her poems find both beauty and courage in this saudade. They are unafraid, unashamed, rich with image and wit. Marina’s Fado poems insist on making music of both joy and tears.”

–Vincent Toro, author of “Stereo.Island.Mosaic” 

“Marina Carreira‘s “I Sing to That Bird Knowing He Won’t Sing Back: Fado Poems” is beautiful, compelling, and impossible to put down. Each poem begs the next, creating a mosaic that captures the fragmented reality of the immigrant experience. Partly here and partly there, in terms of both language and space, the collection defies categorization. A real achievement.”

–Hugo Dos Santos, author of “ironbound – a blog”, “A Child in Ruins” (translator; Jose Luis Peixoto)

“These fados are brave blues, honest horrors that yield to resistance and hope. Marina strokes language and music to transport us, we gallop towards a world of fire, a search for repentance; at moments finding salvation. I hear this bird’s song breaking, and can’t resist soaking in each bruised note–because of her triumph in her trill, and because of the resolve to celebrate in her ache.”

–Ysabel Y. Gonzalez

In “I Sing to That Bird Knowing He Won’t Sing Back – Fado Poems”, we are introduced to Marina Carreira’s translation of culture, magic, and that which cannot be explained. Fado is the perfect entry point for an ambitious collection just waiting for ‘a body to slip in’ and let its emotions improvise their own stories. Carreira is not just an achingly wondrous poet, she is a musician meticulously orchestrating the many ways for a reader to feel “the most beautiful,…darkest beauty.”

–Roberto F. Santiago, author of “Angel Park”