This first volume is a culmination of poetry by mostly at-risk students that have come and gone through Cesar E. Chavez Academy in Corpus Christi for whatever their reason, whether eventual, proud graduates of this Texas charter school or perhaps from their former schools, and then from some who are still there today striving to complete their own high school requirements while continuing to struggle with issues that plague even the "normal" high school students. The idea behind this poetry anthology started back in the Spring of 2014 after the local publication of the students' first, short...

An article appeared in the November/December 2006 (29/6) issue of the Star*Line, the Journal of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, that prompted this poetry writing exercise and eventually this book. The article, suggested by Marge Simon, the editor of Star*Line at the time, was written by the association's founder and legendary, science fiction writer and poet, Suzette Haden Elgin, who just recently passed away. Simon marks Elgin's "Defining Our Horrible Terms" as "a fascinating take on" what "terror poetry" is. Upon reading, Juan Manuel Perez, the author of this book, found it to be...