Review by Booklist Review
Salas Rivera, a Lambda Award--winning author of five previous books of poetry, wields wicked intelligence and blades of humor to crack open the minds of his readers. Written in Spanish and English, this collection confronts the storied histories of Puerto Rico through the lives of the island's inhabitants and diaspora: "we are home libraries / gathered in a data strike / that miss their bowels / of historied flesh." Tracing a fraught lineage to older canons of English-language literature, Salas Rivera employs figures from Shakespeare's The Tempest--Caliban and the sea--to dramatize Puerto Rico's relationships with the U.S., the Caribbean, and itself. A series of poems entitled "the independence / (of puerto rico)" culminates in a visual poem that slowly sends the letters of the poem's title phrase crashing into each other from across the page. In another bold act of typographical play, Rivera posts full-page text in all caps like headlines and includes giant swathes of cursive in the book's closing pages, like a journal's final signature. Punchy, funny, smart, and stylistically unmatched, this bilingual edition also allows readers to scour the poet's self-translation for insights to his creative process.
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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The emboldening tour de force from Rivera (Poems for the Nation) illuminates tyranny in his native Puerto Rico and reimagines a decolonized future. Rivera reproaches exploitation, entitlement, and bigotry as he calls for unity and perseverance. Though the subjects of these poems blossom from oppression, the poet does not lament: "we live under fascism.// ...you won't lose what you don't have.// we live on stolen time." In his most deceptively simple poem, he repeats "the independence of puerto rico," separating "the independence" from "puerto rico" through spacing and parentheses, gradually bringing the words closer, then eliminating independence to form the portmanteau puertorico, visually representing a transition toward unity and sovereignty. Cogent allusions and metaphors (including a discourse with Shakespeare's The Tempest) form vivid and memorable images. A master of aphorisms, his shortest poem is five words: "changing masters/ didn't free you." These poems of protest challenge the status quo in a cry for equity that brings Puerto Rico's heartbeat to the page. (Apr.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
The issue of Puerto Rico's political status crosses over into literature in this collection by Salas Rivera, a nonbinary Puerto Rican translator, editor, and National Book Award--nominated, Lambda Award--winning poet who served as the fourth Poet Laureate of Philadelphia. Of varying length, from a couple of lines to several pages, the bilingual texts are arranged sequentially, with Spanish first. (Both texts are supplied by the author.) All the poems focus on the theme of hope for a decolonial Puerto Rico. The format is unconventional: most verses are written entirely in lower case, the others are composed as posters, and the lines in the last of the seven Puerto Rican independence poems gradually compress. Probably the most relatable sequence compares Puerto Rico's status to that of the island in The Tempest, which Caliban claims Prospero usurped. The poem "dependency theory" from that sequence succinctly states the poet's case: "the more they take, the more we give." The stirring last poem pays homage to José Martí as Salas Rivera modifies the famous first poem of Versos sencillos of the Cuban patriot poet to suit his own purpose. VERDICT The anti-imperialist theme, reminiscent of Neruda's Canto general, will be especially appealing to Latinx readers in general and to the Borinquen community in particular.--Lawrence Olszewski
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