In poems brilliantly textured and layered, Salgado Maranho integrates socio-political thought with subjects abstractly metaphysical. Concrete collides with conceptualbutcher shops, sex, and machine guns in conversation with language, absence, and timeresulting in a collection varied as well as unified, an aesthetic at once traditional and postmodern. Writing in forms both fixed and free, Maranhos language suggests a jazz-like musicality that rings true in Alexis Levitins masterful translations. For readers who enjoy the complexity of Charles Simic, or the stylistically innovative syntax of Csar Vallejo, Maranhos Blood of the Sun is a sensually provocative amalgamation of both.