Book
Stepmotherland : poems
Publication Information
Notre Dame, IN : University of Notre Dame Press, 2022.
Physical Description
xvii, 80 pages ; 23 cm
Summary
"Darrel Alejandro Holnes's first full-length collection, is filled with poems that chronicle and question identity, family, and allegiance. This Central American love song is in constant motion as it takes us on a lyrical and sometimes narrative journey from Panamá to the USA and beyond. The driving force behind Holnes's work is a pursuit for a new home, and as he searches, he takes the reader on a wild ride through the most pressing political issues of our time and the most intimate and transformative personal experiences of his life. Exploring a complex range of emotions, this collection is a celebration of the discovery of America, the discovery of self, and the ways they may be one and the same. Holnes’s poems experiment with macaronic language, literary forms, and prosody. In their inventiveness, they create a new tradition that blurs the borders between poetry, visual art, and dramatic text. The new legacy he creates is one with significant reverence for the past, which informs a central desire of immigrants and native-born citizens alike: the desire for a better life. Stepmotherland documents an artist’s evolution into manhood and heralds the arrival of a stunning new poetic voice."--
Contents
- When my mother gives up her American dream to marry my father
- Praise song for my mutilated world
- Scenes from Operation Just Cause
- 20 de Dicembre, 1989: when the U.S. invades Panama
- When the narcos kidnap JuanFe
- The art of diplomacy
- Bread pudding Grandmamma
- Poder
- Conception
- How to dream about a woman
- ba-by
- Pietà by Michelangelo: marble, 1499
- OTM or Other Than Mexican
- Mirror woman
- Marvelous sugar baby
- Cristo Negro de Portobelo
- Af-ri-can-Am-er-i-can-ize
- African Klan suit #2
- Ferguson, USA
- Link
- Ode to my Father, the Captain
- Breaking & entering
- Angelitos Negros
- The down-low messiahs
- Power bottom
- Vinyl
- I always promised I would never do drag
- Arroz con pollo
- Joseph on knowledge in the bibliical sense
- All legs lead to Naomi Campbell
- Rihanna & child
- Naturalization
- Black parade
- Homecoming.