I grabbed this on one of my book crawls (my Grand Rapids book crawl, at We are LIT, specifically), because I had really liked an older collection of Herrera's -- Notes on the Assemblage. Which was a good decision, as I loved this one even more!

This was so overfull with power and truth that my own words seem empty and lukewarm in comparison. One of the very first poems, "You Just Don't Talk About It," stopped me in my tracks and let me know what to expect from the collection. Except this isn't just anger and injustice and calling to account, it is also grappling with identity and humor and empathy and glints of hope as well.

A moving and indicting plea for dignity. ( )

I've been keenly following Juan Felipe's work since it first crossed my path in 1979. In 2012, he was appointed California Poet Laureate by Gov. Jerry Brown. In 2015, he was appointed as the nation's first Xicano poet laureate. Following 14 brilliant book, comes now one from him that seems to have been waiting to come forth for some time. For causes and conditions having come together for him to bring out, we can count our lucky stars. I, for one, am simply blown away.

Consider these as letters to America. For instance, the "you" in "You Just Don't Talk About It" is America. ( " Listen: you just don't // talk about it the rape the endless scrubbing washing self lacerations the never ending self whipping the deep-down smoldering stone trauma growing up crooked tree growing up silence ... " ). In their unflinching look at suffering, these letters tell us as much or more about the correspondent than of the recipient, which is how it is.

I happen to consider the book's thought-thru structure evidence that it's one long poem, one extended soul-searching session, facing the blank page with his breath, blood, and bone, as one. During the course of the journey, hhe invokes Basho and Nelson Mandela, Elias Canetti and Ko Un – moreover, is joined by countless nameless immigrants detainees deportees in the human flow of this unending century of a tragic epic of refugees.

Of its range of poetries, the poems that hit the hardest are those that just get down ( " get down to the coffee grounds " as one poet put it ), such as " Todavía estoy aquí the deported father said " in response to a photography portfolio by Jonathan Maldonado. Its depths of compassion reminds me that coffee grounds make good mulch.

Essential nourishment for survival and flourishing, in the precarious and perilous yet still precious moments of these times.

Am I being coherent ? ( )