The Certainty of Spring: Poems by a Guatemalan in Exile

``At a distance, / I run with those who are running,'' Esquivel ( Threatened with Resurrection ) begins one poem in this bilingual volume. Because her ``exile'' status permits her to speak freely, her vision lacks the stunning metaphors that have been encoded in the works of many Latin American writers. These poems are not only prosaic and rhetorical, they are weighed down by footnotes explaining dates, places, names. Attempts to relate the Guatemalan struggles to that of all so-called oppressed peoples (including South Africans, Vietnamese and Palestinians) ring false. Cliches pile up: ``Indian child, delicate sprig of violet / with your breath sustaining / our poor faith / in the sunshine of Justice.'' Esquivel often obscures the indigenous Indian culture in favor of Catholicism. And she comes incredibly close to proselytizing at times: ``If Christians / really believed / that we are one single Body, / that of the Risen Christ / how many situations we could change!'' Much as one respects the Guatemalan fight for independence, these poems are difficult to identify with. (Mar.)