Margaret Randall's latest poetry collection is perhaps her finest work yet. Vertigo of Risk is, as Denise Chávez calls it, Randall's Master Opus-a "Testimonio to a life lived in the blessed search of Truth." The series of poems called "Dearest," which read as letters to friends and inspirations, leads into a sharpened assembly of pieces that both celebrates and champions life and art, all with Randall's rich candor and ear for language throughout.

Margaret Randall (b. New York, 1936) is a poet, essayist, oral historian, translator, photographer, and social activist. She lived in Latin America for twenty-three years (in Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua). From 1962 to 1969, she and Mexican poet Sergio Mondragón co-edited El corno emplumado / The Plumed Horn, a bilingual literary quarterly that published some of the best new literature and art of the sixties. She is the author of more than two hundred books. She lives in Albuquerque with her partner (now wife) of more than thirty-six years, the visual artist Barbara Byers, and travels extensively to read, lecture, and teach.