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Obaluaye is a poetry collection for the things that plague us. Obaluaye is a Yoruba god of infirmities and healing. The poems in this book talk of cradles and graves and every experience in-between, employing the duality attribute of the Orisha of epidemics. Each poem is an experience of health and death wrapped in a pod, of strength and flaws and a thirst for things that elude.This collection explores the human cycle-the routine of life and death (and a possibility of restoration, rebirth). It seeks to understand the things that haunt us-our fears, our nightmares, quest for freedom, the weight of responsibilities, the paradox of hope, devotion and betrayals, failed states and the covid-19 pandemic. Obaluaye is a realization that "life is a cocktail of sweet, sour and insipid" and we are born to run this cycle, reaching for light, reaching for freedom...that ultimately leads to the grave.

In this collection, Los Angeles poet Iris de Anda serves as witness to the range of travesties and tragedies resulting from the Trump Era and what came before and continues. The poet as testifier, as spy in the hole of society's conscience, as brave foot soldier who pulls the pin on the hand grenade exploding with poetic truths-Iris de Anda ¡Presente! ¿Ana Castillo, So Far From God and My Book of the Dead

Boundless 2022, the official anthology of the 15th Annual Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival. Boundless is an eclectic collection of poetry from around Texas and the U.S.A., with contributions by poets from around the world. A Youth Anthology is also included! The Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival (V.I.P.F.) is held annually in deep south Texas. www.valleypoetryfest.orgCover art by Fouad Reda, age 9, Mexican American with Arabic roots

Inspired by Neruda's '20 Love Songs,' New FlowerSong Press Book Features Spanish Translations and Cover Design by Chilean American Francisco LetelierMcAllen, Tex. - FlowerSong Press announces acquisition of Safe Arms: 20 Love & Erotic Poems (w/an Ooh Baby moan) by Peter J. Harris, with Spanish translation and cover design by Francisco Letelier, slated for 2022 publication.

Jackeline''s Butterfly honors and commemorates the life of Jackeline Caal, the seven-year-old Guatemalan girl who died while in the custody of US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on December 8, 2018. Jackeline and her father, Nery Caal, were part of a group of 163 asylum seekers who crossed the New Mexican border the previous day. They turned themselves in to the authorities at around 10 PM, but when Jackeline began to vomit and have seizures, it took 90 minutes before she was seen by medical professionals. The doctors recorded a body temperature of 105.7° F. Jackeline was transported to the children''s hospital in El Paso, Texas, but it was too late to save her. The President of the American Academy of Pediatrics called this tragic death "preventable."In this wide-ranging collection, Xánath Caraza calls upon nature and the gods (both ancient Greek and Mesoamerican) to witness the senseless death of Jackeline and other children who "One by one ... / die alone." Attention must be paid to the horrors that are taking place: "Red moon: bear witness / to this tragedy. / Nocturnal birds: / wake from your slumber / and strengthen your flight. / Stop gliding / with the wind. / Flap your wings, / dominate the skies, / spread the news."The final poems address Jackeline directly and celebrate the seven-year-old child who had the strength and audacity to travel over 2000 miles in search of a better life. Jackeline''s memory is honored: "You depart full of poetry, Mayan girl. / Your huipil embroidered with blue butterflies. / Your motionless hands loaded with golden memories. / Your closed eyes still cold. / You are flower and song, beautiful girl." The horror of this loss is mitigated only by the butterfly that continues to flutter about, representing hope and the innocence of childhood. Edward Lorenz asked whether a single flap of a butterfly''s wings in one part of the world might lead to a tornado in another. Here''s hoping that the fluttering of this butterfly leads, instead, to a rebirth of compassion and concern for the most vulnerable among us.

GRAVITY PREVAILS, brings together her activism, her commitment to environmental justice and indigenous rights, her life in Kansas and San Antonio, travels, work, local flora, homage to social justice leaders, artists and neighbors.

Las Criaturas is a hybrid collection that blends poetic and speculative narrative forms to tell stories of untold women. The poems and short stories play with traditional storytelling forms and tales to ruminate on the monstrous, unruly, vulnerable, strength and beauty in the feminine and seek to reclaim people''s power in powerless situations. The book is broken into three sections to show the multifaceted nature of the word "criatura." In the story, "The Monster" a child in a migrant detention center is haunted by a monster made of her own fear. In "La Mujer Alacran," a woman who is sexually assaulted transforms into a literal "scorpion woman" in order to protect herself.  In "The Inbetween Mother," a daughter attempts to reunite her selkie mother with her true form. 

Charlie, a young doctoral student of mixed race with schizoaffective disorder,  in 1990''s Manhattan, is on the brink of discovery when she meets- and falls in love with- boygod; the troubled heir to a tech company ruled by his beautiful and ruthless mother, Daphne Fitzgerald-Turner. The pair immerse themselves in an intense relationship, fueled by drugs and a traumatic bond with their respective mothers. Boygod, whose volatile relationship with imperious Daphne crosses many shocking borders, and Charlie, whose own mother''s struggles with mental illness lead to a near case of filicide.As Charlie delves further into the shadowy realms of science and her mind, she becomes convinced that she can predict the future, that the technology she creates will be responsible for untold misery throughout the world. Unable to extricate herself from the web of her abusive relationships, Charlie begins to spiral further into the imagined safety of the whispers of her mind. What they have to say may change the narrative of humankind or doom it completely. Told through hauntingly poetic prose by Charlie and the boygod, Charlie, Forever and Ever will lead you through an evocative labyrinth of deep, erotic desires and contrary hearts.

All "Vaho" seems to long to be a corpse or sing its worms with two tongues. To say mist would be to become her. In this house, only what is not named is not transfigured into tears because names are out of date. Javier Fuentes Vargas is the child who hides his mouth, more than his face, in the mist - I remember to name his shadow, the locked thirst of his hands that are giving account, in these poems, of loneliness, of a house all made for death, to look for "the hard stone because that one no longer feels" (and I have also looked for that stone on the sidewalks), of the chance a Hermes (winged savior of loneliness) arrives to saffron us in the bilingual reading of Javier without the masks that we give ourselves by sublimating our foggy faces into sounds through this book. 

Hominis Aurora is a collection of poems in three parts (sacred numerology of the beginning, evolution and end or the triangle as exemplification of the birth of knowledge) manifested in the metaphoric subtitles of Tempus, Ritualis and Communitas. The book embarks on a journey toward the telluric and the mystical, specifically within the transition between the prehistoric eras known as the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods. This time initiates the beginning of everything: the creation of language, the aura of thought, poetry in its ethereal stage, ferocious individualism, the formation of social groups, the beginning of human mythology, artistic expression, bellicose conflicts, the emergence of agriculture, immigration, man vs. nature, the seeds of ingenuity, and man facing his own existential reality and that of all others. Since no written history exists from which to construct that poetic world of human genesis, one must rely on investigation of the disciplines of archeology, fine arts and anthropology, These disciplines, especially art, were crucial in the elaboration of the book; which, to a great extent, is a love letter to the fine arts, as stated in the epigraph of the English poet William Wordsworth. Hominis aurora es un poemario en tres partes (numerolog├¡a sacra de comienzo, evoluci├│n y final o el tri├íngulo como ejemplificaci├│n del nacimiento del conocimiento) manifestado en los subt├¡tulos metaf├│ricos de Tempus, Ritualis y Communitas. El libro emprende un viaje hacia lo tel├║rico y lo m├¡stico, espec├¡ficamente dentro de la transici├│n de las eras de la prehistoria conocidas como el periodo paleol├¡tico y neol├¡tico. All├¡ se da el comienzo a todo: creaci├│n de la lengua, el aura del pensamiento, la poes├¡a en su estado et├⌐reo, el individualismo aferrador, formaci├│n de los grupos sociales, inicio de la mitolog├¡a humana, la expresi├│n art├¡stica, los conflictos b├⌐licos, el surgimiento de la agricultura, la inmigraci├│n, hombre versus naturaleza, brote del ingenio y la realidad existencial del hombre ante s├¡ mismo y los dem├ís.  Al no existir una historia escrita para construir aquel mundo po├⌐tico de la g├⌐nesis humana, se ha recurrido a investigar a trav├⌐s de las disciplinas de la arqueolog├¡a, las artes pl├ísticas y la antropolog├¡a.  Estas disciplinas, en especial el arte, fueron cruciales en la revelaci├│n del libro. El libro, en gran medida, es una carta de amor a las bellas artes, como queda expresado en el ep├¡grafe del poeta ingl├⌐s William Wordsworth

"Everything is Returned to the Soil is a bilingual, full-length poetry collection of poems on the spiritual, political, and cultural realms. Reading Briana Mu├▒oz''s poetry is like following her as she reclaims her Indigenous culture, recounts moments growing up wedged in-between two borders, all while breaking long existing patriarchal structures within her existence as a woman of color."