|
*Winner of the 2019 Gatewood Prize*Praise for ADELANTE
"Adelante is unerringly fresh and restless, a treasure of deftly-honed narratives that manage to be both unleashed and enviably controlled. The poet galvanizes the often staid stories that surround and numb us--in these pages, an alternately tender and ferocious lyricism is just barely contained. That lyricism bolsters the meticulous crafting that can't help but culminate in a sparkling and utterly original collection." --Patricia Smith, judge of the 2019 Gatewood Prize "Jessica Guzman’s blazingly beautiful poems illuminate and record nature’s resilience and suffering as well as our own. In this marvelous first collection, “like algae on a river // everything gradual we notice // at once: the service dog’s bark, / the fire flower’s sliver burst & contrails / conspiring against dusk.” Spirits of all kinds take us by storm; we emerge both cleansed and ravished, hungering for more." —Angela Ball |