the heart. Its aches and love pangs punctuate the journey from Mexican life to queer desire, from quiet pain to vocal resistance, from the intimate world of the family nest to the unconstrained skies of freedom. A poet of deep reflection, Luis Lopez-Maldonado finds meaning in the most unexpected places, reminding us that each conflict-no matter how personal, no matter how public, no matter how distressing-has the potential for grace and insight, if we're brave enough to confront it."

-Rigoberto González, author of To the Boy Who Was Night

"Mexican Bird: Brown Wings Through White Clouds contextualizes the speaker's political identities in a country contaminated with violence. Its conversational tone invites you to understand, "The dead must wait to be judged / but here we do that for free to each other." But only if you can find them as they describe a land that disremembers and dismembers like vultures. Here, Luis takes from the collapsed home and rebuilds the puzzle to be heard because to not is a death. In each poem there is a longing desire for love, lust, and listening; these poems are lust rebellions amid griefs. They write "isn't it funny, / when you're gone / and dead, / I start listening?" Dear reader, listen to the wing flaps of these poems as they take flight."

-David Campos, author of American Quasar