Not Go Away Is My Name

by Alberto Ríos

Resistance and persistence collide in Alberto Rios's sixteenth book, Not Go Away Is My Name, a book about past and present, changing and unchanging, letting go and holding on. The borderline between Mexico and the U.S. looms large, and Ríos sheds light on and challenges our sensory experiences of everyday objects. At the same time, family memories and stories of the Sonoron desert weave throughout as Ríos travels in duality: between places, between times, and between lives. In searching for and treasuring what ought to be remembered, Ríos creates an ode to family life, love and community, and realizes "All I can do is not go away. / Not go away is my name."

Genres: Poetry, Adult

98 pages, Paperback

First published May 12, 2020

Reviews

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

These poems were good but not great.  Sometimes I came across a verse that I'd like to remember, but mostly these just rolled past me with no effect.  

Five Years Later
I was, and now I am.
So much goes into the saying of those few words.

Sometimes this change is sweetness,
A kiss, a caress. Sometimes,

Nothing warns us. It cannot be thought by us.
It is done to us. A gun,

An earthquake, a flood—any of the muscular
Horrors of this world.

In those instances, we don't ask for it,
We don't get to take a deep breath,

It is simply the end of the chapter
And page 1 of the next. We are thrown

Into the deep water and we are angry,
We are angry, we are angry.

We could not swim, but now we are swimming—
We have to swim.

It is not fair. It is never fair.
We have no chance to be part of the decision

That changes us.
We were, and then we are. Regrettably,

We are not alone. If it is one of us,
It is all of us, so many of us.

We were, and now we are.
Sweetness or cruelty, suddenness, shock,

A rough touch that could be either:
We are changed.

If it has been a kiss, our lives are turned powerfully
Toward lightness.

But when it is not sweetness, not a kiss,
We live the rest of our lives as someone else,

But someone who is still us.
If we had a gun, because we did have a gun,

If things had gone differently, better,
If the rehab had been more effective,

Had God stepped in, had anyone heard:
We would be living in the regular world.

We could look at the rabbits along the highway
And the blue, ragged mountains in the distance

Like anyone.
But five years after something has happened to us

We are not the anyone.
The jackrabbits and the Tucson Mountains—

We love them, not easily but fiercely, fiercely
In the new way we have had to find.

We love them as who we are now.
We love because that's what's left.

[Kristina Hakanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impressive variety in a collection of free verse couplets. Many powerful pieces (“The Cockfight Place,”) and memorable lines (“We all follow the recipes/ nobody wrote down”). Notes on the poems are informative of the occasions (Solicited by the Arizona Republic, “Five Years Later” commemorates the shooting of Gabby Giffords) and the process (“Faithful Forest”). Many poems give a whimsical note to the region (“The Barrel Cactuses of the Northern Sonoran Desert”). The political runs through the collection, sometimes gut-punching as in “I Do Not Go Away” from which, fittingly, the title of the collection gets its name.

[Harry Palacio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not Go Away Is My Name is a collection of euphoric almost pendantic mannerisms without obfuscation- it’s prose is numinous and cool, with a catchy Latin(x) feel that makes it’s writings appear that much more lucent and demur. Alberto Ríos has a penchant for the river song, for the ancestral storytelling that makes his poetry more of an aria.

[Annie Robb]

My introduction to Alberto Rios. I enjoyed the themes of culture, work, duality, memory, and the desert environment. The poems are more thoughtful than lyrical. The language is straightforward and real. Rios is a keen observer.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed engaging with this collection each morning. Narrative poetry at its finest, fusing story lines with crisp visual observations of time and place, of family, of identity, of borders that do not need to be there.

[Shawn Aebi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection about location, place, and their belongings. A broad range of topics from border wars and migration to music, libraries.

[Cathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ríos speaks from the heart, as always, in this collection that connects the beauty and treachery of humans, the desert, cactus, and more.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really, really loved this wise, mature book.

[Val · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection filled with observation and love for the desert.

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just didn’t feel pulled into these.

[JanetP · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poetry, ugh! I have no idea what any of it means.

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great new collection by a longtime favorite poet of mine and the first AZ poet laureate, who writes about life in the borderlands between Mexico and the US. Some of these feel much lighter and more whimsical than a lot of his earlier works, and then some are just devastating.