My Nature is Hunger: New and Selected Poems, 1989 – 2004
Whether he's writing fiction, essays, children's books, or poetry, Rodriguez, an activist as well as an artist and the son of Mexican immigrants, writes of the anguish and anger, determination and revelation experienced by individuals driven from one world and not welcomed in another, and those who are maligned and marginalized for their ethnicity even in the country of their birth. Following his first novel,Music of the Mill(2005), this haunting retrospective volume gathers selections from Poems across the Pavement(1989),The Concrete River(1991), andTrochemoche(1998) and presents more than two-dozen deeply affecting new poems. Beginning with a border-crossing poem, "Running to America," and ending with "The Wanton Life," a wrenching yet empowering poem to the poet's imprisoned son, this potent volume embraces the tough life of the barrio and the transcendent life of the spirit. Rodriguez also writes resoundingly of the lies and tragedy of war, the strength of women, and the beauty of the earth, and he parses the absurdities of life with knowing humor.Donna SeamanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved