Josefina Plá is known for the major changes she and other members of the Grupo del '40 (Group of 1940) brought to Paraguayan verse. Her contributions to poetry are of significant value, but her talents extended far beyond her ability to write verse. Plá was also an excellent dramatist, short-story writer, essayist, historian, educator, linguist, journalist, and radio announcer, as well as an artist of truly innovative works of ceramics and engraving. In fact, within Paraguay she is as well known for her work in the plastic arts as she is for her literature. Within her literature, however, her best work is found in her many volumes of poetry. Roque Vallejos, in Josefina Plá: Crítica y antología (1995), notes that Plá's poetry is exceptional in the expression of the self and her use of forms. The many paradoxes and oppositions she...