With a supple, meditative approach, Erin Knight explores the complexity of transformation in her astonishing first collection of poems. The Sweet Fuels reflects on the notion of orientation as a task of translation — whether in terms of magnetic north or street signs, the entrails of an animal or the vowels in a name.

Of the more than four dozen poems in the book, some are written in English, others are rendered from Spanish. Still others perform a high wire act — written in English, converted to Spanish and then back into English, emphasizing the promise of continuous engagement with our points of reference.

Taking translation as a metaphor, The Sweet Fuels asks: Qu’est que ça veut dire? ¿Qué quiere decir? Not “what does it mean,” but “what does it want to say?”