This is the first collection in the UK for Mexican poet Victor Manuel Mendiola, although his work has been appearing in small-press editions, in others' collections and in journals for some time. His collected poems 1987-2002, Tan oro y negro (UNAM, Mexico City), won New York's Premio Latino de Literatura (Latino Literature Prize) in 2005. This Selected shows the full range of his work, but begins with his astonishing erotic long poem 'Tu Mano Mi Boca' (Your Hand, My Mouth), which was so well received in Ruth Fainlight's translation when it was included in her latest collection of poems.

There were stray people, stray dogs, stray bullets, and stray butterflies.'Fourteen-year-old Pearl France lives in the front seat of a broken down car and her mother Margot lives in the back.