Acknowledgments

I OWE MANY DEBTS of gratitude for help with this book. To four people I owe particular thanks: to Rosa Francisca Beotegui Commins, the poet's daughter, who in May of 1996 placed in my hands a copy of her mother's book Casa de hablas (House Made of Utterance); to the poet herself, whose marvelous conversation gave her poems context; to Jose María Beotegui, the poet's husband, whose generous patience and excellent command of English guided me through some straits in the Spanish originals; and to Thomas Rabbitt, long-time friend and masterful poet, whose keen reading of my English versions saved them from many traductions of our mother tongue.

Gratitude is due to Monte Avila Editores, Caracas, Venezuela, for permission to use poems in Spanish selected from the book Casa de hablas by Ana Enriqueta Terán, copyright © 1991 by Monte Avila Latinoamericana, C.A.; and to the poet herself for permission to use those selected from the book Albatros, copyright © 1992 by Ana Enriqueta Terán, as well as those from the manuscript of Autobiografía en tercetos (Autobiography in Tercets), never before published.