José Olivarez

This was a brilliant way to start the new year.

Olivarez paints a beautifully achy vision of being Mexican & American, especially in the Chicago area. He grew up in a different space & era than I did but it all felt so real. Many times his words broke my heart & filled me with love.

I loved this collection so much! Biting and funny, plain-spoken and obsessed with pop culture, grappling with racism and also why cheese fries are so terrible and also so amazing. Exuberant joy and also rage, and did I mention the biting humor?

I especially loved the series of poems entitled "Mexican Heaven," each little glimpses and interrogations of what heaven means, each with a punchline. Like the heaven in which god doesn't drink or smoke weed, so all the Mexicans smoke outside where god show more won't smell the weed.

I cannot say enough about this except I loved it. show less

"dear god, I'll never understand
how some people meet
a drowning person & offer
INSPIRATIONAL advice
instead of offering a hand or rope"

I'm celebrating love today with this heartwarming collection. Promise of Gold/Promises de Oro by José Olivarez publishes today and I need you all to run and gift yourself his words. This collection has me pausing, breathing a little clearer, drawing emojis in the pages, texting screenshots, thinking about ways to dismantle systems, clinging to memories and show more remembering the ancestors. I am also being reminded that it's OK to not be OK and self-care is also letting others love me when I need to heal.

This one is perfect for today because love is one of the prominent themes and explored in so many poems: in the ways we care for each other and ourselves, the way we use our voices to advocate, the ways that men love through actions and less words, the ways that love shapes communities and so many other aspects. Olivarez's collection also captures themes of immigration, racism, love, family, masculinity, friendship, the pandemic, mental health and grief. The format takes you on an exploration, transforms you and gives you a nice big abrazo at the end. Olivarez wore his heart on his sleeve and the emotions just bleed through. For me, the bilingual format was golden. I read through it first in English and then flipped it over and read in Spanish. Palabras hit different in español. I love you doesn't melt my soul the way te amo does. Olivarez is a word magician and his prose will cast a spell on you. Thank you @henryholtbooks for the gifted copy. show less

I read the English half only, I LOVE that this book has English and Spanish included and flipped, so both are the front half of their respective side of the book. I took a look at the Spanish half, but 1) poetry is hard and 2) my Italian is stronger and my Spanish but not strong enough that I can figure out the Spanish lol.

This book left me with more questions than anything. The author is quite adamant that he is Mexican, and I wonder how his relatives who have spent their lives living in show more Mexico would feel about that--do they consider him Mexican, or American, or Mexican-American? Perhaps he is a DACA recipient and is trapped between, unable to live as either a Mexican or as an American. He does not say, though I also understand why he might not want to announce that to the world in the Trump era (because we are no post-Trump, he is still out there causing trouble and hating).

I spent an embarrassing amount of this book thinking Cal City was the desert city California City. Finally I googled when I realized he was in Chicago. And that Calumet City is right next to Dolton, where my grandfather was born and raised. On page 71, "Wherever I'm at That Land is Chicago" says "all the steel mills shuttering up like conquered forts. one day, there will be an urban tour through South Chicago". It sounds like not much has changed in the last 100 years. Those mills were shuttering/shuttered in the 1930s too, my grandfather worked at one, and my grandparents fled to California in 1936 because there was no more work in Chicago. And thus I exist. show less