Ernesto Cardenal is a major poet of the Spanish language well-known in the United States as a spokesman for justice and self-determination in Latin America. Cardenal, who recognizes that poetry and art are closely tied topolitics, used his poetry to protest the encroachments of outsiders in Nicaragua and supported the revolution that overthrew Somoza in 1979. Following his conversion to Christianity in 1956, Cardenal studied to become a priest in Gethsemani, Kentucky,. While studying Cardenal committed himself to the practice of nonviolence. In May 2005 he has been nominated to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.