Mexican Bird: Brown Wings Through White Clouds

“Mexican Bird sings from the heart. Its aches and love pangs punctuate the journey from Mexican life to queer desire, from quiet pain to vocal resistance, from the intimate world of the family nest to the unconstrained skies of freedom. A poet of deep reflection, Luis Lopez-Maldonado finds meaning in the most unexpected places, reminding us that each conflict—no matter how personal, no matter how public, no matter how distressing—has the potential for grace and insight, if we’re brave enough to confront it.”

—Rigoberto González, author of To the Boy Who Was Night

“Mexican Bird: Brown Wings Through White Clouds contextualizes the speaker’s political identities in a country contaminated with violence. Its conversational tone invites you to understand, "The dead must wait to be judged / but here we do that for free to each other.” But only if you can find them as they describe a land that disremembers and dismembers like vultures. Here, Luis takes from the collapsed home and rebuilds the puzzle to be heard because to not is a death. In each poem there is a longing desire for love, lust, and listening; these poems are lust rebellions amid griefs. They write “isn’t it funny, / when you’re gone / and dead, / I start listening?” Dear reader, listen to the wing flaps of these poems as they take flight.”

—David Campos, author of American Quasar

“Luis Lopez-Maldonado’s poetry collection, Mexican Bird, is a stunning exploration of self, weaving together the personal, political, and social. His poems recall those of fellow queer Chicano poet Francisco X. Alarcón and their penchant for verse rich in cultural nuance and specificity. The musical conduct of these poems are brilliant and memorable, yielding surprise and inevitable suddenness of imagery across carefully crafted lines. They are brave in their encounters with human situations and immigrant voices. They embrace vulnerability juxtaposed with passion. I can say with great confidence that this collection will not disappoint! Truly this is a book worth reading!”

—Ernesto L. Abeytia, series Editor for The Digging Press Poetry Series

“Poetry writes itself on our bodies” while “[l]ips are sewn into a new smile.” Which is to say: this poemario, in the best of its pieces, compellingly marries language y cuerpo so that “threaded eyebrows [start] / to grow in all directions / like spines on cacti.” All throughout the poems in Mexican Birds, the portraiture in play, some of it stark, pulls no punches—“[t]he blood stains /No longer stains / But art.” And so, says this fierce speaker: “[K]iss open my lips and look inside my mouth, in search of music.”

—Francisco Aragón, author of After Rubén