Haunt Me

by José Enrique Medina

« Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner »

We don’t get to choose who haunts us. In Haunt Me, José Enrique Medina opens a door between worlds—the living and the lost, the remembered and the repressed. These poems drift through memory like a haunted house: Abuela slams the door to keep out the devil’s children, the dead drink beer at the bar, and silence smells like ruda and regret. A mother never returns, but her absence grows roots. With dark humor and aching tenderness, Medina conjures Mexican family life, queer whispers, and sacred forgiveness. This collection asks: What do we inherit from those who vanish? And what becomes of us when the ones we long for stay silent—while those we tried to forget come back, again and again, to remind us who we are?


From the Author
After my mother died, I didn’t feel her presence. Instead, I felt other ghosts—complicated, not always kind ancestors—who stayed close, as if asking to be remembered. Writing these poems became a way to sit with them, to explore the ways even difficult legacies shape us. As I wrote, I began to understand why my mother hadn’t appeared: maybe she had already given me so much of herself, she didn’t need to. Maybe she was in my blood, indistinguishable from my own voice. Haunt Me doesn’t try to resolve grief. It leans into it, allowing memory, contradiction, and longing to coexist. The poems point to the possibility that goodbye isn’t a disappearance but a transformation, something that continues, quietly, in the life that follows.

Genres: Poetry

40 pages, Unknown Binding

Published September 1, 2025

Reviews

[Chami Rassekh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful. So much wrapped up in so few words / pages. My favorites were

Like Rare Pokemon Cards, We Go Through Life Collecting the Dead
Wake Up
Haunt Me
My Mother’s Buried in the Largest Cemetery in North America


Explores grief, heritage, queerness, identity in a really unique way. So so so good. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best Rattle chapbook prize winner since Falling off the Empire State Building, which has been universally acknowledged by the experts as the best ever.

[Maxwell O'Toole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Content: 5/5
Writing: 5/5
Enjoyment: 4.5/5
Overall: 5/5

An absolutely beautiful chapbook tribute to Medina's lost loved ones and the practice of grief (especially as informed by his culture). He captures each person's memory with unflinching truth, showing their flaws, virtues, and the little details of their existence. The only reason I deducted points overall for enjoyment was that it isn't typically a subject or poetic style that I find myself drawn to (this was included as a free bonus from Rattle alongside its latest addition!), but I absolutely can't let that impact giving a great score to this great piece of art.

[Michael Heimbaugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

In his first (chap)book, Medina’s poetic voice already seems fully formed—tender, aching, angry, wistful and frequently hilarious as he grapples with his grief, his identity, and his past. Potent stuff.

[Malachy Moran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great chapbook, I really enjoyed this. The dead come alive in this little collection. They walk, they curse, they drink, they follow right behind us. It asks us all to contemplate the ghosts we each carry

[Timothy · Rating 5 out of 5]

thanks Rattle Poetry Magazine. This was a quick read, and I think I found another poet I connect with.

[Chase Troxell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This chapbook does a nice job of conveying a deeply personal, connected journey in a way that feels sophisticated but not bogged down. Good read for anyone regardless of their exposure to poetry.

[Kait · Rating 5 out of 5]

An honest, darkly humorous, sometimes awkward sitting with one's ghosts. These poems are haunting in the most truthful, modern way - not lurking in the velvet curtained shadows or beckoning from the bottom of the lake, but judging the speaker's Dia de los Muertos cake lounging by the pool, rifling through drawers of gay porn magazines.

The constant presence of the ghosts of the speaker's Tia, Tio, and Abuela juxtaposed against the absence of his mother's is striking. Where the other ghosts are a nuisance, the speaker is begging his mother to haunt him:

"What are you waiting for? Haunt me.

Crush lemongrass under your heels,
let me smell you. Ring wind chimes
when there's no breeze, so I'll know."

- from "Haunt Me"

This is a collection I thoroughly enjoyed, reading most poems more than once. I look forward to reading these poems again and again.

[Callie W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful journey of grief and identity. I felt like I was emerged in a story.

[Peter Longden · Rating 4 out of 5]

A chapbook of sombre poetry containing the following explosive line in the titular poem: “a soft grenade of memory.”

[Robt O'Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was delighted by the frequent 'historias familiares' within its pages.. I wasn't expecting these intimacies to be present, alongside the author's relationship with his late Mother

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this poetry chapbook. Medina’s bilingual poems center around the ghosts of his dead grandmother, aunt, and uncle and his wish that his mother’s ghost would come. In “The chair I Pull Out,” the poet prepares a table for four guests, all ghosts, lighting a candle, scenting the room with vanilla, putting on the music of Chavela Vargas. Finally, he pulls out a chair for his mother. She does not come, but he keeps hoping to see her again. In “Wake Up,” he writes “Here is the night,/I place it in your hands//like a cup./Drink and remember/having a tongue/tasting coffee." The poem concludes, "Mother,/stir the darkness,/so I can hear/the soft clink of your spoon/against ceramic/again.” These poems carry so much power in their simple words. Ten stars.

[Dorothy Mahoney · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful chapbook through Rattle magazine. The poet addresses all his old ghosts in such poems as "Dia de los Muertos Baking Contest" in which he hears his mother's advice after setting the timer
for 20 minutes and 19 seconds, the year she died.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each page, I read says, Wake up, wake up. Every page within, the healing of memory, acceptance and belonging emerges from dust and heaven alike.

[Ted Guevara · Rating 5 out of 5]

José Enrique Medina’s voice is equally melodic with his poetry. I was fortunate enough to hear him read half a dozen poems from Haunt Me. There is a welcome mystique and mystery in the chapbook. The frequent visits of his grandmother, “abuela," in the lines add to the eerie, pleasurable depth. The metaphors come alive and do not let up until we get the whole treatment, as in “Broken Seashells.” Contrary to what the title suggests, I see the tormented being in a snail instead. Compassionate grim is more evident in a singular slug. “Ninos de la Tierra” is another example. There’s fostering of the dead, but it is from new angles unheard of in modern literature, rather than from the usual celebration. José is a brilliance-shepherding poet on the rise. His Rattle Prize-winning collection here is a must-read or a "must-hear" debut.