David Huerta is one of the leading contemporary poets in Mexico, and "Before Saying Any of the Great Words "is the first comprehensive bilingual anthology of his work. This volume highlights poems from nineteen books and includes the first-ever English translation of Huerta's monumental book-length poem "Incurable," which one critic called "a masterpiece of poetry in Spanish in the twentieth century."Huerta has been a central figure in two of the most influential poetic movements in late-twentieth-century Latin America-the neobaroque movement and that of "postmodern" language poetry. Huerta's imagery, intertextuality, and dense lyricism remain unparalleled in Mexican letters. In addition, Huerta's poetry frequently questions the capacity of language to express human experience, even while his passionate use of language consistently disproves this doubt."I appear in the saliva of the angel, facing my illusory sheets of paper-flapping loose in the whiteness of dawnand about to immerse themselves in the inky second hand, written or wroten, adorned with drunken deletions, like a groomed lawn in the mountain of my body, like the lukewarm drug of the Unicorn who opens its eyes amid the residues, amid the interstices, amid what is happening."David Huerta is the author of nineteen books of poetry and is widely regarded as Mexico's finest living poet. He has long been a voice of political activism and is currently a political columnist for the Mexican weekly "Proceso"; he is also a professor of literature at Mexico City's Universidad Nacional AutA3noma de MA(c)xico.