![]() ![]() Intimate and urgent, these timely dispatches from the Texas-Mexico border reveal the tensions and contradictions of today’s America. Even as he paints a vivid picture of American diversity, Rodriguez exposes the deterioration of our nation-broken promises, failed prosperity, the shattering of dreams. A few of the poems are written in Spanish, and the volume concludes with two English translations of these poems, which the author originally wrote in his native language. Others muse on more recent tragedies, including the racial violence in Ferguson, Missouri, and the illicit drug trade. ![]() Some of the poems in this collection look to the past: events such as the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion or the author’s first trip to an American grocery store. ‘Challenger: The Final Flight’ is a Netflix original four-part documentary series that examines the case of the 1986 Challenger Space Shuttle, which exploded 73 seconds into its flight and resulted in the deaths of all the 7 crew members that were abroad it. In this scenario the poet vacillates between various roles: coroner, pathologist, and the body itself. Michael Hindes was looking through some old boxes of photographs at his grandparents’ house when he came across images of what appeared to be a normal shuttle launch. ![]() With its provocative title, the collection calls to mind an image of our nation as a body awaiting examination to determine the cause of death. Saturated with allusions to family, immigration, sexuality, and violence, This American Autopsy is also an unsettling meditation on life and death. At once deeply personal and thematically expansive, these works offer a bracing look at the darker impulses of contemporary America. In this powerful collection of free-verse poetry, immigrant, poet, and memoirist José Antonio Rodríguez encapsulates the experiences of an artist and citizen caught between two worlds. ![]()
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