Oneyda González's astounding winning entry of the Paz Prize for Poetry is a searching and yearning triumph of hope over pain--through love. It is no small coincidence that González and Paz are linked in this publication, since the spiritual experience the latter lived and observed in India have accompanied González for many years, through her own curious search of the invisible that culminated in The Infinite Loop / El lazo infinito.

In the collection, pain and love combine in a self-annihilating matter-against-energy reaction that eventually amounts to a dynamic and deliberate formula for understanding hope. The Infinite Loop exists in the most fiery flames of friction where the personal will to survive--to hope to survive--is forged.

González's book was selected by judge Lourdes Vázquez, who says of his selection: "There was strong competition, but El lazo infinito stands out for its unique inner depth. In a kind of introspective scenario--a movie theater--a poem begins the rite and as a voice, an 'I' (that personal identity) in continuous dialogue with her inner voice. That never-ending reflection creates a universe of revelations, desires, and knowledge, and its course diverge, intermingle, and grow like the stems of a plant."

The Paz Prize for Poetry is presented by the National Poetry Series and Miami Book Fair at Miami Dade College and is awarded biennially. Named in the spirit of the late Nobel Prize-winning poet Octavio Paz, it honors a previously unpublished book of poetry written originally in Spanish by an American resident.

Translated from Spanish by Eduardo Aparicio.