Materia Prima is the first English-language collection of Amanda Berenguer’s poetry. A key contributor to Uruguay’s famed literary Generación del 45, Berenguer (1921-2010) stands among the most important post-World War II poets of Latin America, along with her now-legendary compatriot Marosa di Giorgio. Berenguer’s poetry, stylistically and conceptually varied, ranges from classic, measured lyric to Dickinson-inspired gnomic utterance; from metaphysical and erotic rhetorical effusion to condensed and radically concrete experiment; from seemingly apolitical languor to pointed ideological dissent.

"How fabulous to discover a major poet I knew nothing about! Is it that Uruguay is easily hidden behind the bigger Latin American countries, or that as a woman she is often disappeared behind the men? Amanda Berenguer, a major voice of the Uruguayan group of artists & thinkers known as the Generation of ’45, is finally getting her due in anglophone territory with the fine translations of this well-edited collection. Hers is urgent work, 'wingenious' and 'mythovulsive,' feisty yet lyrical, playful yet deeply serious, explorative yet assured. A great achievement."
—Pierre Joris

"We are lucky to get this anthology, which acquaints us extensively with Amanda Berenguer’s poetic cosmogony. It transports us to a planetarium where we float in ever-fluctuating cosmic landscapes. Berenguer’s constant 'variants' of images, themes and graphics make me think of Emily Dickinson, while her vision has Blake’s vastness and exuberance. In her poetry, desire is so grand and ubiquitous that it is like a giant in a solitary cosmos. Even a blackbird has a 'heart with lightning bolts' and / 'The apple is brilliant / and dangerous: / one alone can set an orchard on fire.' In 'Of Cats and Birds' she writes, 'When I meet a bird / I climb onto its wings without asking / and I fly among the heliotropes.' I climb into Amanda Berenguer's pages and soar among cats, Möbius strips, quinces, blackbirds, The Magellanic Clouds."
—Ewa Chrusciel