Description: "There are fevers you still wish to forget," writes Eduardo Martínez-Leyva, but how fortunate for the rest of us that he remembers. These tenderly crafted autobiographical poems pierce through to the heart of pain, love, loss, and the ongoing search for salvation--or at least a salve. Housed in the lived experiences of a queer Latinx person born and raised in the border town of El Paso, Cowboy Park seamlessly blends themes of masculinity, identity, and the immigrant experience, offering a new perspective on the iconic image of the cowboy and a deeper understanding of the complexities of human experience.
The detainment and deportation of Martínez-Leyva's brother grounds this exquisite collection in the all-too-common familial tragedy of political violence and discrimination. Martínez-Leyva honors the people, language, culture, and traditions that shaped him, revealing the indignities, large and small, experienced by a community that is too often misrepresented and maligned. "My voice was the only thing keeping us warm," he writes, and the warmth from this striking debut collection is beautiful to behold.Brief description: Eduardo Martínez-Leyva was born in El Paso, Texas, to Mexican immigrants and earned his MFA from Columbia University. His work has appeared in Poetry, Boston Review, The Adroit Journal, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. He teaches and resides in New York City.
Review Quotes: "Familial and queer desires pulse with tenderness and nostalgia in Martínez-Leyva's excellent debut. Brilliantly orchestrated in three movements. . . . His subversive reclamation of Western imagery--cowboys, horses, desert landscapes--to explore queer desire and cultural displacement is particularly striking. . . . These poems reveal the fine line between desire and loss with unflinching beauty."-- "Publishers Weekly (starred review)"