Sor Juana's love poems

For the first time ever, here is an exquisite sampling of love poems, some of them clearly addressed to women, by the visionary and passionate genius of Mexican letters, the 17th century nun Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz translated into the poetic idiom of our own time by poets Joan Larkin and Jaime Manrique. The poems included in this selection have been culled from Sor Juana's extensive body of poetry on the many kinds of love.

Some of them are rooted in Renaissance courtly conventions, others are startlingly ahead of their time, seemingly modern in the naked power of the complex sexual feelings they address.