4:56 Carlos Fuentes Lemus (1973-1999), with E. Shaskan Bumas y Alejandro Branger (Bilingual)

These poems by Carlos Fuentes Lemus (1973-1999), son of the author of Terra Nostra and Christopher Unborn, are an introduction to the unique voice of a sensitive but unsentimental young poet who became aware of his mortality at a very early age. A hemophiliac who as a child contracted HIV from contaminated blood products, he struggled to come to terms with his condition through the practice of art while paying homage to those artists from the Western canon (and from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame) whose work inspired and shaped his own, such as Keats, Van Gogh, Wilde, Rimbaud, Schiele, Kerouac, Elvis, Hendrix, and Dylan. 4:56's heartbreaking "songs and visions" record his fleeting passage through our world.