Aug, 06 2020 | no responses
In the beginning, Wimberley struggles to mourn the loss of home, father, and country. And by the end, he emerges from the trauma with the intent to preserve himself.
Poetry
Aug, 05 2020 | no responses
These poems illuminate the seemingly endless cycles of violence that perpetuate government-sanctioned surveillance and incarceration, particularly on working class young men.
Aug, 04 2020 | no responses
By presenting the reader with twenty-five different translations of the same poem—which deliberately raises questions about what it means for multiple poems to have “sameness,” or to come from the same “source” poem—de la Torre implicitly argues for the translations as a sort of palimpsest or layering-over.
Jul, 17 2020 | no responses
That seems to be what Phillips sets out to do, to keep beginning, and that seems to be what he does throughout this very rewarding book that ends with a mass coronation.
Jul, 17 2020 | no responses
What does it mean to be herself in this Mexican-American culture? The last section moves more toward answering this question.
Jul, 16 2020 | no responses
The poems are muscular with allusion and wordplay, citing sources diverse as Old English poems and Winnie-the-Pooh. The syntax is equally rich, piling adjectives that jar against elusive nouns as if to make a point: the world is complicated and so are attempts to turn experience into meaning.