W.W. Norton & Co., 244 pp. $24.95, hardback.
If, in this day of poetry slams and hip-hop lyrics, there is anyone still around who thinks poetry is the stuff of fragile fops and mooning romantics, the words of poet Marti´n Espada will burn the props out from under that assumption.

With a turn of the floodgates, Espada lets loose a torrent of powerful, muscular, sexy and red meat poetry that grabs the reader’sear, heart and soul. While he is more than willing and able to explore the issues of love and beauty he is at his best taking on the injustices of a culture that confuses humans for interchangeable machinery and values commodities over the lives of those who work the fields and factories.

Some of his best work grew from his work as a tenent lawyer. In the poems, “The Legal Aid Lawyer Has an Epiphany”, “The Broken Window of Rosa Ramos”and “Imagine the Angels of Bread”Espada delineates the lines that separate and exploit with elegant power.

The poem from which the book’stitle comes is a work in praise of the 43 members of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 100 who lost their lives working at the Windows on the World Restaurant at the World Trade Center.

In an age of arthritic and dessicated politcal blather, Espada breathes the energy of real people into the politics of exploitation and betrayal. Frequently his verse finds its way into progressive and labor union publications. Espada is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst.

One of my favorite poems in this collection is a short piece entitled:
Sheep Haiku
A lone sheep cries out:
There are more of us than them!
The flock keeps grazing.
One could do far worse than to spend time grazing in Espada’sliterary meadow.

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