Hispanic Sonnets, by Alex Z. Salinas

“All of the poems in Hispanic Sonnets by Alex Z. Salinas can be categorized by intensity and precision. These poems utilize a ferocious language and challenge us to keep up with them in pace and idea. Somehow, the speakers become more and more clever with each poem. Maybe because, like Salinas himself, these speakers can conjure dreams from the wind, from the landscape around them, and from the many familiar people inhabiting these poems. As a Latino poet, I’ve long struggled with my ethnic identity while writing and have stared at the word “Hispanic” on the page and considered exactly what it means and how it relates to me. Salinas goes a long way in these poems to help us understand his relationship to this word and idea. In “Hispanic sonnet, or Dark Heart,” Salinas writes: “I’m like a split path casting dual shadows. /Like a shadow I’m a branch of my name. / I’m merely a name like everybody else. / Like everybody else I’m a collection of veins.” In another poem, “Hispanic Sonnet,” he further explores his relationship to his culture and writes: “Mob movies are to Scorsese what taquerias are to me.” Alex Z. Salinas, like the rest of us, is doing his best to define himself by ever changing and obtuse terms. Fortunately for us, Salinas has the language, insight, and tenacity to bring these ideas to life.”

—Aaron Rudolph, author of The Sombrero Galaxy