IN BLOOM

Estaban Rodriguez's In Bloom is an exquisite array of lyrical poetry. The title poem, for example, takes us through a catalogue of images, beautifully phrased, of family members who "lent themselves to a pendulum of trumpets, / accordians, drums, guitars, and lyrics that taught us" Spanish and solitariness, the disenchantment. Yet, "a song / we knew would suddenly come on, give us every reason / to bob our heads, sing along" even if we didn't understand the message. Rodriguez can take us to "Gomorrah" and "Golgotha," and lead us to a prayer that says "praise be . . . luck--regardless / of circumstances, conditions--was something / that could always be repeated."

Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2020