Through an inventive re-visitation of Kuhn’s theory of the paradigm shift, Simon makes two unusual yet brave and commendable decisions when it comes to scholarly books: one is to study (with a poet’s detailed, loving eye) how poetry influences, reflects, and explains contemporary society in the Iberian Peninsula; the other is to address the culture of Portugal and Spain comparatively and unapologetically—as the ‘sister countries’ that they undeniably are, despite their obvious differences. —Dr. António Ladeira, associate professor of Portuguese and Spanish, Texas Tech University …An insightful study…Simon successfully argues that both the thematic content and reader reception of poetry were subject to such paradigm shifts as a result of the transformations that took place in Spanish and Portuguese societies…show[ing] through his study how poetry during this period transitioned from earlier modernist tendencies to a postmodern expression of theme, coinciding with the socio-political transformations that took place in Iberia during the second half of the twentieth century….Simon’s work serves to advance the study of contemporary Peninsular poetry and our understanding of the evolution of postmodernist thought. —Dr. Erik Ladner, assistant professor of Spanish, Central College