When I did my 1st college show on May 9th, 2001 at Bates College, I never could have imagined that I’d one day be a full-time poet doing my 1,000th show at Tennessee Wesleyan University on October 6th, 2020 (mid-pandemic, masked up and socially-distanced, no less).
Still taking the leap toward this life, still grateful, still growing, still pushing.
21 yrs. in the making, 5 yrs. of writing—the cover of my debut full-length poetry collection, “Fractures”
(stunning cover design by Debbie Berne).
After first taking in the breathtaking cover image, I immediately noticed my name. My initial impression: “Damn, that’s a big choice on the font size.”
But then, I thought back to how I felt in school: a delayed reader and outcast, alienated and intimidated not just by the dominant canonical writers solely taught at my public school, but by literacy in general.
I never imagined encountering a book by an author with a name like mine, with two accent marks and in bold, unapologetic lettering.
For anyone out there who didn’t think someone like them could write a book or help shape the literary canon—this book is for you.
For more info & to Pre-Order: https://bit.ly/2EyOHwR or through Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, Bookshop, Amazon
I don’t take a single gesture of positivity that lifts up this book for granted. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it (particularly seeing who was named the winner in the category below mine)—Hijito is the winner of the 2020 International Book Award for Poetry!!!
In the years I spent writing and revising this book, I never imagined something like this.
The full Award Announcement can be found HERE.
Forever grateful to everyone at Platypus Press for believing in this book.
#HijitoBookTour
#LatinxPoetry
In the midst of an overwhelming time of anguish, rage, grief, growth, and, also, possibility, I’m trying to allow space each day for celebration and gratitude (wherever it might emerge).
Today, I’m grateful for Eduardo C. Corral, Martín Espada, and the team at Platypus Press, who believed in my book Hijito, which just won the Foreword INDIES Gold Medal in Poetry.
I recognize how fraught and complicated any award or recognition of an artistic work can be, but I’m, nevertheless, taking a moment to breathe and toast this moment. And, beyond all else, hoping that this book—reckoning with white supremacy, police violence, & parenthood—offers something catalytic & meaningful to this building resistance.
Here are the finalists:
https://www.forewordreviews.com/awards/finalists/2019/poetry/
Here are the medalists in poetry:
https://www.forewordreviews.com/awards/winners/2019/poetry/
My wife and I organized a protest march in our neighborhood. Four days ago, we hatched the idea—hoping for perhaps a handful of people. Instead, nearly 500 showed up, spilling across multiple blocks.
We intentionally did this in our quiet, residential part of town, to both invite and confront an area, like so many others, that assumes a reprieve from the urgency of these demands toward abolition, toward an immediate ceasing of state-sanctioned violence against Black people.
We pulled our kids in a wagon as we walked. Some day, I will tell them this story about their first protest. How they held signs they made and led a long line of comrades.
Wherever you live, you can do this. Even if it’s two families or 10 that show up. It’s time.
#BlackLivesMatter
#DefundThePolice
#UntilAbolition
(Photo by Joe Carlos)
