What do you think?
Rate this book
BreakBeat Poets
Citizen Illegal
Citizen Illegal is a revealing portrait of life as a first generation immigrant, a celebration of Chicano joy, a shout against erasure, and a vibrant re-imagining of Mexican American life.
In this stunning debut, poet José Olivarez explores the stories, contradictions, joys, and sorrows that embody life in the spaces between Mexico and America. He paints vivid portraits of good kids, bad kids, families clinging to hope, life after the steel mills, gentrifying barrios, and everything in between. Drawing on the rich traditions of Latinx and Chicago writers like Sandra Cisneros and Gwendolyn Brooks, Olivarez creates a home out of life in the in-between. Combining wry humor with potent emotional force, Olivarez takes on complex issues of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and immigration using an everyday language that invites the reader in. Olivarez has a unique voice that makes him a poet to watch.
In this stunning debut, poet José Olivarez explores the stories, contradictions, joys, and sorrows that embody life in the spaces between Mexico and America. He paints vivid portraits of good kids, bad kids, families clinging to hope, life after the steel mills, gentrifying barrios, and everything in between. Drawing on the rich traditions of Latinx and Chicago writers like Sandra Cisneros and Gwendolyn Brooks, Olivarez creates a home out of life in the in-between. Combining wry humor with potent emotional force, Olivarez takes on complex issues of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and immigration using an everyday language that invites the reader in. Olivarez has a unique voice that makes him a poet to watch.
74 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 4, 2018
102 people are currently reading
5021 people want to read
About the author
José Olivarez
11 books183 followersJosé Olivarez is the son of Mexican immigrants. His debut book of poems, Citizen Illegal, was a finalist for the PEN/ Jean Stein Award and a winner of the 2018 Chicago Review of Books Poetry Prize. It was named a top book of 2018 by NPR and the New York Public Library. Along with Felicia Chavez and Willie Perdomo, he is co-editing the forthcoming anthology, The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT. He is the co-host of the poetry podcast, The Poetry Gods and a recipient of fellowships from CantoMundo, Poets House, the Bronx Council on the Arts, the Poetry Foundation, & the Conversation Literary Festival. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. In 2018, he was awarded the first annual Author and Artist in Justice Award from the Phillips Brooks House Association and named a Debut Poet of 2018 by Poets & Writers. He lives in New York City.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 414 reviews
April 21, 2023
Citizen Illegal is a vibrant collection of poetry. The poems are simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny and dead serious. Olivarez makes a powerful case for social justice near the U.S.-Mexico border by contrasting the lives of white Americans, whose personal attributes are considered "legal," with those of Mexican immigrants, considered to be "illegal."
Olivarez makes his social and political commentary with a dry and biting wit. My favorite parts are a series of poems with the recurring title, "Mexican Heaven," which contrasts the views of heaven between white Americans and Mexican immigrants. The view of St. Peter presented in these poems is especially amusing.
Altogether, this is a very powerful and emotionally charged collection of poems that seeks to overcome social and political divisions among people at the U.S.-Mexico border, using humor as a means to emphasize the absurd nature of many current controversies.
Olivarez makes his social and political commentary with a dry and biting wit. My favorite parts are a series of poems with the recurring title, "Mexican Heaven," which contrasts the views of heaven between white Americans and Mexican immigrants. The view of St. Peter presented in these poems is especially amusing.
Altogether, this is a very powerful and emotionally charged collection of poems that seeks to overcome social and political divisions among people at the U.S.-Mexico border, using humor as a means to emphasize the absurd nature of many current controversies.
January 23, 2022
I killed a plant once because i gave
it too much water. lord, i worry
that love is violence
let me tattoo this on my forehead real quick
it too much water. lord, i worry
that love is violence
let me tattoo this on my forehead real quick
April 23, 2019
I loved this collection of powerful poems that frequently made me smile--even laugh--while simultaneously moving me to tears. About being the child of immigrants who fled here without papers, about belonging--and not belonging. About the conflict between being a son and fitting into the larger society one is a part of. About moving on yet staying connected.
These poems are lyrical but at the same time highly accessible. I could hardly put it down--if it were fiction, I'd call it a "page turner".
A beautifully written, compelling volume of poems. Highly recommended for both content and form.
These poems are lyrical but at the same time highly accessible. I could hardly put it down--if it were fiction, I'd call it a "page turner".
A beautifully written, compelling volume of poems. Highly recommended for both content and form.
November 16, 2019
3.5 stars rounded up. The son of Mexican immigrants, Chicago poet/author/educator wrote a collection of poems that reflected his first generation's realities and their rage, dreams, losses, grittiness, and tensions. His poems ranged from what makes a baby born in the U.S. of illegal parents Mexican or illegal to many variations of Mexican Heaven. He demonstrated why bother to hide your ethnicity when it's transparent in your dress, accent, foods, mannerisms, and denials that you are Mexican. He reminded us that you may not know them, but Mexicans are everywhere - making the car, serving the food, and washing the dishes. "Mexican American Disambiguation" showcased the confusion and diversity of being a Mexican today who lives in Chicago.
Some lines I savored:
"you know how rumors get born out of spit & breath, but got whole legs by the time they land, so that's how holding hands becomes hooking up or pregnant. listen to everything. don't believe anything."
(From "Rumors")
"what is assimilation but living death?"
(From "Poem in Which I Become Wolverine")
"all the honey of a slow kiss"
(From "I Loved The World So I Married It")
Some lines I savored:
"you know how rumors get born out of spit & breath, but got whole legs by the time they land, so that's how holding hands becomes hooking up or pregnant. listen to everything. don't believe anything."
(From "Rumors")
"what is assimilation but living death?"
(From "Poem in Which I Become Wolverine")
"all the honey of a slow kiss"
(From "I Loved The World So I Married It")
August 9, 2018
I just finished this book in one sitting and I'm in awe. I learned more than I have ever learned from a poetry book, in terms of both craft & content. Like, if we each had an empathy score for the lives we haven't lived but have listened to, mine just sky-rocketed.
September 8, 2018
My review for the Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifesty...
The word “ode” gets thrown around a lot in relation to poetry, so it’s worth taking a look at Merriam-Webster’s definition of the term: “a lyric poem usually marked by exaltation of feeling and style, varying length of line, and complexity of stanza forms.” A cross-check with the Poetry Foundation adds that an ode is “a formal, often ceremonious lyric poem that addresses and often celebrates a person, place, thing, or idea.”
Jose Olivarez’s indispensable debut poetry collection, “Citizen Illegal,” is a boisterous, empathetic, funny-yet-serious (but not self-serious) celebratory ode to Chicanx life in the contemporary United States.
In fact, it’s an ode that contains many odes within itself. Take “Ode to Cheese Fries,” in which he writes “say it with me —/ cheese fries please —/ give me everything artificial including cardboard fries,/ the bread fresh/ out of some Walmart cloning experiment —/ throw in/ a cold pop —/ I want a joy so fake it stains my insides &/ never fades away.” Or “Ode to Cal City Basement Parties,” in which he writes, “lovers tag walls/ the deep blue/ of Levis. Hands on/ hips. hips on hips. red/ Solo cups. smoke hides./ touch reveals.” There’s even an “Ode to Scottie Pippen,” in which the speaker declares “Scottie, you made it look easy,/ the way your legs ate air,/ found every escalator up.// i was watching your game. working my own factory/ trying to build my way out.”
Moreover, many of the poems exhibit odic qualities, such as “My Mom Puts on Makeup,” where the speaker imagines that “for the next few hours she will not worry/ about me & my brothers,” and instead “all she will have to worry about is the color of her lips/ and the handsome men admiring them.”
Admixed with the joy is undeniable sorrow and anger, for the book is an act of emotional and intellectual rigor, one that makes an unsparing examination of race, gender and class, particularly as such categories relate to the struggles and complexities of immigration and gentrification.
The opening poem, “(Citizen) (Illegal),” uses the persistent parenthetical repetition of those two labels to invite the reader to see how, like a pair of malevolent ghosts, the categories — and all the fear, confusion and discrimination that accompany them — haunt the lives of those to whom the words are applied: “Mexican woman (illegal) and Mexican man (illegal)/ have a Mexican (illegal)-American (citizen)./ is the baby more Mexican or American?/ place the baby in the arms of the mother (illegal)./ if the mother holds the baby (citizen)/ too long, does the baby become illegal?”
The son of Mexican immigrants, Olivarez graduated from Harvard University and lives in Chicago, where he works as the marketing manager of Young Chicago Authors and as the lead teaching artist for the Teen Lab Program at the Art Institute. He is also the co-host, with Aziza Barnes and Jon Sands, of the podcast “The Poetry Gods.” The program’s mission statement declares: “You don’t have to love poetry to love the show.” One could say something similar about Olivarez’s book, which is very much in keeping with how the podcast describes the kind of poets it likes to feature: “joyful and absurd, with stories for days.”
Olivarez is far from subtle in his interrogations, as one can tell simply by flipping through his table of contents, populated by such arresting titles as “My Therapist Says Make Friends With Your Monsters,” “The Voice in My Head Speaks English Now,” “I Walk Into Every Room & Yell Where the Mexicans at” and “White Folks Is Crazy.” But this lack of subtlety — this courageous, head-on bluntness combined with exquisite lyrical clarity — feels bracing and apt, given the subjects he chooses to discuss possess such urgent intensity.
In one of the eight brief poems all titled “Mexican Heaven” scattered throughout the book, he writes with characteristically cutting humor: “there are white people in heaven, too./ they build condos across the street/ & ask the Mexicans to speak English./ i’m just kidding./ there are no white people in heaven.”
There are hard arguments in here that might be difficult for some, but they need to be hard and they need to be heard. Olivarez has just the right voice — compassionate, dynamic and irreverent — to deliver them.
The word “ode” gets thrown around a lot in relation to poetry, so it’s worth taking a look at Merriam-Webster’s definition of the term: “a lyric poem usually marked by exaltation of feeling and style, varying length of line, and complexity of stanza forms.” A cross-check with the Poetry Foundation adds that an ode is “a formal, often ceremonious lyric poem that addresses and often celebrates a person, place, thing, or idea.”
Jose Olivarez’s indispensable debut poetry collection, “Citizen Illegal,” is a boisterous, empathetic, funny-yet-serious (but not self-serious) celebratory ode to Chicanx life in the contemporary United States.
In fact, it’s an ode that contains many odes within itself. Take “Ode to Cheese Fries,” in which he writes “say it with me —/ cheese fries please —/ give me everything artificial including cardboard fries,/ the bread fresh/ out of some Walmart cloning experiment —/ throw in/ a cold pop —/ I want a joy so fake it stains my insides &/ never fades away.” Or “Ode to Cal City Basement Parties,” in which he writes, “lovers tag walls/ the deep blue/ of Levis. Hands on/ hips. hips on hips. red/ Solo cups. smoke hides./ touch reveals.” There’s even an “Ode to Scottie Pippen,” in which the speaker declares “Scottie, you made it look easy,/ the way your legs ate air,/ found every escalator up.// i was watching your game. working my own factory/ trying to build my way out.”
Moreover, many of the poems exhibit odic qualities, such as “My Mom Puts on Makeup,” where the speaker imagines that “for the next few hours she will not worry/ about me & my brothers,” and instead “all she will have to worry about is the color of her lips/ and the handsome men admiring them.”
Admixed with the joy is undeniable sorrow and anger, for the book is an act of emotional and intellectual rigor, one that makes an unsparing examination of race, gender and class, particularly as such categories relate to the struggles and complexities of immigration and gentrification.
The opening poem, “(Citizen) (Illegal),” uses the persistent parenthetical repetition of those two labels to invite the reader to see how, like a pair of malevolent ghosts, the categories — and all the fear, confusion and discrimination that accompany them — haunt the lives of those to whom the words are applied: “Mexican woman (illegal) and Mexican man (illegal)/ have a Mexican (illegal)-American (citizen)./ is the baby more Mexican or American?/ place the baby in the arms of the mother (illegal)./ if the mother holds the baby (citizen)/ too long, does the baby become illegal?”
The son of Mexican immigrants, Olivarez graduated from Harvard University and lives in Chicago, where he works as the marketing manager of Young Chicago Authors and as the lead teaching artist for the Teen Lab Program at the Art Institute. He is also the co-host, with Aziza Barnes and Jon Sands, of the podcast “The Poetry Gods.” The program’s mission statement declares: “You don’t have to love poetry to love the show.” One could say something similar about Olivarez’s book, which is very much in keeping with how the podcast describes the kind of poets it likes to feature: “joyful and absurd, with stories for days.”
Olivarez is far from subtle in his interrogations, as one can tell simply by flipping through his table of contents, populated by such arresting titles as “My Therapist Says Make Friends With Your Monsters,” “The Voice in My Head Speaks English Now,” “I Walk Into Every Room & Yell Where the Mexicans at” and “White Folks Is Crazy.” But this lack of subtlety — this courageous, head-on bluntness combined with exquisite lyrical clarity — feels bracing and apt, given the subjects he chooses to discuss possess such urgent intensity.
In one of the eight brief poems all titled “Mexican Heaven” scattered throughout the book, he writes with characteristically cutting humor: “there are white people in heaven, too./ they build condos across the street/ & ask the Mexicans to speak English./ i’m just kidding./ there are no white people in heaven.”
There are hard arguments in here that might be difficult for some, but they need to be hard and they need to be heard. Olivarez has just the right voice — compassionate, dynamic and irreverent — to deliver them.
August 28, 2024
Sealey Challenge 2024: 28/31
Interesting collection with a blend of poems covering assimilation, the American Dream, and intergenerational and intercultural conflict. This definitely felt like a debut and I found some of the poems to be a bit repetitive which might have been because of the themes or structural choices. There were some poems I really enjoyed and quite a few humorous ones that left an impression as well. The series on "Mexican Heaven" was a good thread to tie the sections together, but I think this collection would have been stronger if some of the poems had been re-worked.
Interesting collection with a blend of poems covering assimilation, the American Dream, and intergenerational and intercultural conflict. This definitely felt like a debut and I found some of the poems to be a bit repetitive which might have been because of the themes or structural choices. There were some poems I really enjoyed and quite a few humorous ones that left an impression as well. The series on "Mexican Heaven" was a good thread to tie the sections together, but I think this collection would have been stronger if some of the poems had been re-worked.
July 7, 2021
Everyone in my family ended up reading this exciting collection of poems about immigration and multiple identities. Olivarez is second generation, his parents having come to the US from Mexico. Among my many favourites were “My Parents Fold Like Luggage,” (my parents fold like luggage/into the trunk of a Toyota Tercel./ stars glitter against a black sky./ from the sky, the Tercel is a small lady/ bug traveling north. from the sky,/ borders do not exist.), “River Oaks Mall,” (trying too hard is another way to confess./ my family takes a Saturday stroll/ through the mall dressed in church clothes./ every other kid in jeans, t-shirts, & Jordan’s. / fun fact: when you have to try to blend in/ you can never blend in.) and “Ode to Cheese Fries” (i want a joy so fake it stains my insides &/ never fades away).
I noticed it’s part of Haymarket Books’ BreakBeat Poets series, which is described as “committed to work that brings the aesthetic of hip-hop practice to the page.”
I noticed it’s part of Haymarket Books’ BreakBeat Poets series, which is described as “committed to work that brings the aesthetic of hip-hop practice to the page.”
March 23, 2019
there are more ways to put lead in a body
than pulling a trigger. what do you think
a food desert is but a long sip of poison?
~Excerpt "Poem in Which I Become Wolverine"
than pulling a trigger. what do you think
a food desert is but a long sip of poison?
~Excerpt "Poem in Which I Become Wolverine"
June 17, 2021
Very nice!
Citizen Illegal
By Jose Olivarez
This is a book of poems. I really enjoyed the majority of them. I especially liked the Mexican Heaven ones and the one about white boys wearing shorts in the winter! That last one was very fitting!
Citizen Illegal
By Jose Olivarez
This is a book of poems. I really enjoyed the majority of them. I especially liked the Mexican Heaven ones and the one about white boys wearing shorts in the winter! That last one was very fitting!
October 10, 2018
I don't know a lot about poetry, but there's a lot of good shit in here.
May 6, 2019
Poetry used to scare me. I tried so hard to read the language written in between the spaces of its lines that I paid no attention to the experience. I didn’t allow myself to experience it. That all has changed thanks to bookstagram. The rhythm and resonance I felt in Citizen Illegal are unparalleled. I have loved immersing myself in a world where I can read so many thoughts my soul has sung but I’ve never been able to translate. When I was reading this book I truly felt a vibration inside of myself, I knew this meant that the feelings I previously felt finally found the words to set themselves free. There were times when the reflection and pondering that this book provided made me feel shame because the truth of some feelings can be ugly. Nevertheless, it was great to get to experience this and to see some of my experience reflected back. This book had me hooked since the beginning in (Citizen)(Illegal), the way the author is able to capture the dissonance in identities between the hyphenated Mexican-American was astounding. I loved the empathy found in these poems for the Chicanx experience, for our parents who crossed borders to follow a dream and what that dream means to the generation that follows. My favorite of the poems is “Mexican American Disambiguation”. I love how this poem articulates how confusing it can be to self-identify when the labels around you are so confusing. I laughed, I sighed and I felt joy in my reading of this book of poems. I highly recommend it. It’s an easy read that can be finished in a day but it will definitely mark you. It is an experience worth diving into. I came out of it refreshed and buoyed by a litany of words that I can wield as a bridge to understand my experience and those like others before me. I love that poetry can do that and I’m so thankful that this book exists.
January 7, 2020
One of Chicago's most vibrant young poets, Jose Olivarez, came to Colorado Springs for a reading last fall, and it was immediately apparent why his fanbase grows almost daily. There was not a trace of the melodramatic "poet's voice" in his reading. It was more akin to a hip-hop concert meeting a stand-up comic's gig. Olivarez speaks of many grave and challenging topics about life as an immigrant, yet his poetry is never bogged down. Like his persona itself, the poems here overflow with joy.
Haymarket Books no doubt provided a home for this poetry volume, not their usual bill of fare, because of the political sensitivity of the topics in this Era of the Wall. Yet Citizen Illegal does not preach its politics. It also is comfortable in its own skin. In an era where poetry has become more popular due to overly-dramatic and passionate works, and even existing performance poets like Andrea Gibson feel they have to make a bow to public taste, Olivarez's poems are direct, hilarious, and occasionally surrealist.
The most obvious winner in this volume is "Mexican Heaven," a series of shorter poems interspersed throughout the book, that will leave the reader rolling on the floor. (Hearing several of the shorter works read out loud is even more jolting.) Olivarez also shows how major hip-hop artists inform his work in poems like "hecky naw" and "Love Poem Featuring Kanye West." But it's the straightforward views of life in the imigrante community that can provide the most insight and the most laughter, shot through with occasional grief of terror.
Olivarez reaches his peak when he adds a touch of surrealism to poems like "Gentefication" (sic) and "Guapo," awash in complex imagery that suggest almost an Ashbery way of viewing the world. Readers may come here seeking observations on the immigrant crisis, but they'll find some top-notch poetry, too.
Haymarket Books no doubt provided a home for this poetry volume, not their usual bill of fare, because of the political sensitivity of the topics in this Era of the Wall. Yet Citizen Illegal does not preach its politics. It also is comfortable in its own skin. In an era where poetry has become more popular due to overly-dramatic and passionate works, and even existing performance poets like Andrea Gibson feel they have to make a bow to public taste, Olivarez's poems are direct, hilarious, and occasionally surrealist.
The most obvious winner in this volume is "Mexican Heaven," a series of shorter poems interspersed throughout the book, that will leave the reader rolling on the floor. (Hearing several of the shorter works read out loud is even more jolting.) Olivarez also shows how major hip-hop artists inform his work in poems like "hecky naw" and "Love Poem Featuring Kanye West." But it's the straightforward views of life in the imigrante community that can provide the most insight and the most laughter, shot through with occasional grief of terror.
Olivarez reaches his peak when he adds a touch of surrealism to poems like "Gentefication" (sic) and "Guapo," awash in complex imagery that suggest almost an Ashbery way of viewing the world. Readers may come here seeking observations on the immigrant crisis, but they'll find some top-notch poetry, too.
August 18, 2018
Citizen Illegal is a beautiful piece of artwork. This collection of poetry explores what it means to be a first-generation Mexican-American. José paints a vivid portrait of family, love, gender, class, immigration and traditions of Latinx. Highly recommend.
March 21, 2019
This was fantastic. I couldn't put it down--i laughed out loud several times. Olivarez had me swinging between feeling good, sad, and with righteous injustice over the course of a few lines. Then repeat. And repeat again.
Haymarket Books has brought me back to poetry.
Haymarket Books has brought me back to poetry.
January 22, 2022
2022 Book Riot Read Harder challenge task # 12: Read an entire poetry collection.
I always have a hard time reviewing poetry collections because I find that the poems that make up the collection are all over the place, with a few hits and a lot of misses. While this was the case with "Citizen Illegal", what I liked about this book was José Olivarez's insights and commentary on Chicano identity, assimilation, immigration, and dealing with trauma. It was Olivarez's exploration of what it's like to grow up between two worlds that profoundly resonated with me because Olivarez perfectly captured the feelings of belonging and unbelonging that first and second generation immigrants feel, which leads them to constantly form and reform their identities, while also pushing back against stereotypes. That being said, unfortunately on the whole, there were only a few poems (see snippets from them below) that I absolutely loved.
(citizen) (illegal)
"...place the baby in the arms of the mother (illegal).
if the mother holds the baby (citizen)
too long, does the baby become illegal?"
River Oaks Mall
"...when the teacher asks who brought beans
for lunch, i blame it on the boy next to me.
i bite my tongue when my stomach protests...
fun fact: when you have to try to blend in
you can never blend in..."
Interview
after Safia Elhillo
"where is your home?
i went to México & no one recognized me..."
I always have a hard time reviewing poetry collections because I find that the poems that make up the collection are all over the place, with a few hits and a lot of misses. While this was the case with "Citizen Illegal", what I liked about this book was José Olivarez's insights and commentary on Chicano identity, assimilation, immigration, and dealing with trauma. It was Olivarez's exploration of what it's like to grow up between two worlds that profoundly resonated with me because Olivarez perfectly captured the feelings of belonging and unbelonging that first and second generation immigrants feel, which leads them to constantly form and reform their identities, while also pushing back against stereotypes. That being said, unfortunately on the whole, there were only a few poems (see snippets from them below) that I absolutely loved.
(citizen) (illegal)
"...place the baby in the arms of the mother (illegal).
if the mother holds the baby (citizen)
too long, does the baby become illegal?"
River Oaks Mall
"...when the teacher asks who brought beans
for lunch, i blame it on the boy next to me.
i bite my tongue when my stomach protests...
fun fact: when you have to try to blend in
you can never blend in..."
Interview
after Safia Elhillo
"where is your home?
i went to México & no one recognized me..."
January 1, 2023
Everything about this collection is deeply personal and I’m just thankful that I got to read it and experience José Olivarez’s art form. Also, if anyone didn’t know… Haymarket Books is a “radical, independent, nonprofit book publisher” who publishes books that “contribute to struggles for social and economic justice”. So they’re a pretty badass place and supporting them makes you badass too! 😊
But really, this poetry collection was stunning. I highlighted several laugh-out-loud moments and also so many “oof I feel that to my core” moments.
But really, this poetry collection was stunning. I highlighted several laugh-out-loud moments and also so many “oof I feel that to my core” moments.
January 5, 2023
There has truly never been a better time to be an untalented minority artist in America -- you can string together sentence fragments that make the average Tumblr post seem profound, call it a day at 68 pages, then just sit back and wait for socially anxious white people to fall over themselves in breathless praise for the brave, profound, intersectional minority experience of blah blah (see also Rupi Kaur and many, many others). Nice work if you can get it.
January 16, 2022
nothing compares to good ass poetry
August 27, 2020
loved it from the start, with (citizen) (illegal)
to this line
there are more ways to put lead in a body
than pulling a trigger. what do you think
a food desert is but a long sip of poison?
to Mexican Heaven
to this line
there are more ways to put lead in a body
than pulling a trigger. what do you think
a food desert is but a long sip of poison?
to Mexican Heaven
December 25, 2021
Leí esta joyita de la poesía estadounidense mientras leía Crime & Punishment. Me gustó mucho, me robo la idea de la poesía como mini-cuento-anecdotario, escrito sin mayúsculas. Muy inteligente, doloroso y lúcido los chistes de los méxicanos llegando al cielo. Increíbles los primeros poemas y los juegos de palabras respecto a lo que el Estados Unidos hegemónico considera propio y lo que considera ajeno o foráneo. Me gustó el Spanglish, quisiera leer más Español en la literatura Latinx gringa eso sí. Gracias a mi querida amiga María por prestármelo. Totalmente subrayable y regalable. Capaz me animo y lo traduzco al Español.
March 7, 2019
"on gray days, i wear the sun, but
it falls off my shoulders. if you catch my mom
in good light, it's impossible to tell where the sun ends."
"...bones worn thin
as thorns to terrorize blue agents,
bones worn thin as guitar strings,
so when the wind blows
we can follow the music home."
"where is your home?
the house i grew up in was foreclosed.
there is a small note taped to the door.
i still have the key, but the key opens nothing."
it falls off my shoulders. if you catch my mom
in good light, it's impossible to tell where the sun ends."
"...bones worn thin
as thorns to terrorize blue agents,
bones worn thin as guitar strings,
so when the wind blows
we can follow the music home."
"where is your home?
the house i grew up in was foreclosed.
there is a small note taped to the door.
i still have the key, but the key opens nothing."
April 16, 2025
These poems are terrific. Some absolutely spectacular, a few a little less so, mostly very audacious, clever, moving. Fabulous cover art. A great experience, not quite 5 stars but recommended.
Also shout out to Haymarket Books who published this; they do an amazing job of bringing us new, diverse, revolutionary voices, recommend checking them out too!
Also shout out to Haymarket Books who published this; they do an amazing job of bringing us new, diverse, revolutionary voices, recommend checking them out too!
April 12, 2021
I saw myself in so many of these poems.
February 20, 2022
Getting Ready to Say I Love You to My Dad, It Rains
i love you dad, i say to the cat.
i love you dad, i say to the sky.
i love you dad, i say to the mirror.
it rains, & my mom’s plants
open their mouths. my dad stays
on the couch. maybe the couch opened
its mouth & started eating my dad.
i love you dad, i say to the couch,
its tongue working my dad like a puppet.
i hear the rain fall & think the city is drinking.
or making itself clean. i am here
with my dad & the TV & the TV drones
on & on, so i’m not sure i hear it—
my dad grunting and nodding,
not the mushy stuff i was expecting,
neither of us cry, no hug or kiss.
a grunt & a nod. i love you dad,
i say to my dad. we sit together
and watch TV. outside it rains. my dad
turns the volume up. the city is drunk.
the city is singing badly in the shower.
i killed a plant once because i gave
it too much water. lord, i worry
that love is violence. my dad is silent
& our relationship is not new or clean.
i killed a plant once because i didn’t give
it enough water. my dad and i watch TV
on a rainy day. we rinse our mouths
with this water.
i love you dad, i say to the cat.
i love you dad, i say to the sky.
i love you dad, i say to the mirror.
it rains, & my mom’s plants
open their mouths. my dad stays
on the couch. maybe the couch opened
its mouth & started eating my dad.
i love you dad, i say to the couch,
its tongue working my dad like a puppet.
i hear the rain fall & think the city is drinking.
or making itself clean. i am here
with my dad & the TV & the TV drones
on & on, so i’m not sure i hear it—
my dad grunting and nodding,
not the mushy stuff i was expecting,
neither of us cry, no hug or kiss.
a grunt & a nod. i love you dad,
i say to my dad. we sit together
and watch TV. outside it rains. my dad
turns the volume up. the city is drunk.
the city is singing badly in the shower.
i killed a plant once because i gave
it too much water. lord, i worry
that love is violence. my dad is silent
& our relationship is not new or clean.
i killed a plant once because i didn’t give
it enough water. my dad and i watch TV
on a rainy day. we rinse our mouths
with this water.
July 8, 2021
"Note: Rose that grows from concrete
The inspirational slogan wants you to believe you are a rose, but consider the emperor's muddy boot. You could be a rose or concrete. The record suggests the boot sees both as a welcome mat. We need a new metaphor. A seed is better. But when seeds grow, who gets the fruit? Fuck it. Be a rusty nail. Make the emperor howl."
~José Olivarez
Citizen Illegal is a powerful collection of poems ranging in subject from being Chicanx in America, immigration, racism, citizenship, being first generation, and so much more. I loved José's writing style and the emotion and heart in his poems. Reading the poetry at times felt like José was sitting there and talking to you directly. There were so many lines in this book that had me cheering over how José beautifully nailed striking powerful points on humanity, citizenship, and Chicanx American identity home.
The inspirational slogan wants you to believe you are a rose, but consider the emperor's muddy boot. You could be a rose or concrete. The record suggests the boot sees both as a welcome mat. We need a new metaphor. A seed is better. But when seeds grow, who gets the fruit? Fuck it. Be a rusty nail. Make the emperor howl."
~José Olivarez
Citizen Illegal is a powerful collection of poems ranging in subject from being Chicanx in America, immigration, racism, citizenship, being first generation, and so much more. I loved José's writing style and the emotion and heart in his poems. Reading the poetry at times felt like José was sitting there and talking to you directly. There were so many lines in this book that had me cheering over how José beautifully nailed striking powerful points on humanity, citizenship, and Chicanx American identity home.
June 28, 2022
I loved this book of poems and have already read many of them over and over. This short collection feels really cohesive looking at identity and what it means to be Mexican-American and playing with tropes of American culture and whiteness. Loved the different poems on Mexican Heaven that appeared throughout the book. Read on Hoopla but will be buying a copy.
One of my favorites:
Note: Rose that Grows from Concrete
the inspirational slogan wants you to believe you are a rose, but consider the
emperor's muddy boot. you could be a rose or concrete. the record suggests
the boot sees both as a welcome mat. we need a new metaphor. a seed is bet-
ter. but when seeds grow, who gets the fruit? fuck it. be a rusty nail. make
the emperor howl.
One of my favorites:
Note: Rose that Grows from Concrete
the inspirational slogan wants you to believe you are a rose, but consider the
emperor's muddy boot. you could be a rose or concrete. the record suggests
the boot sees both as a welcome mat. we need a new metaphor. a seed is bet-
ter. but when seeds grow, who gets the fruit? fuck it. be a rusty nail. make
the emperor howl.
April 13, 2019
Wowowowowow I love José Olivarez and this book just understands what it means to be an immigrant child. It’s like eating KFC with Maggi sauce, like your mom’s homemade ‘pasta’ that still tastes like curry, like love that sometimes feels like hate because it’s so strong and so scared, like love that doesn’t get said.
January 10, 2019
incredible
January 18, 2019
Amazing! I'll be recommending this book over and over.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 414 reviews