Let go your keys, let go your gun, let go your good pen and your rings, let your wolf mask go and kiss goodbye your goddess figurine.
With this invocation, Maria Melendez beckons us on a journey an exotic expedition through life s mysteries in search of the finer strands of experience. In a Latina voice laced with a naturalist s sense of wonder, she weaves bold images reflecting a world threaded by unseen wounds, now laid before us with an unflinching love of life and an exquisite precision of language. Adopting multiple guises field researcher, laboring mother, grief-stricken...

The remarkable and wholly insightful poems collected here bounce the reader through a world where words are not bricks but trampolines--springy, un-static-y things. Feisty, spirited, serious and comic, these poems address a wild range of subjects with an equally wild range of tones. As readers, we find ourselves holding on with white knuckles, but we always want to turn the page.

The most modern of roller coasters ride on soft rubber tires and slithery smooth tracks. Gone are the days of jouncing along on steel wheels, smacking over hard metal joints. So it is with this book. Although...