Party Line: Poems

Description: A debut collection that examines US-Cuba tensions, transnational Black identity, and revolutionary gatherings

Review Quotes:

"In his debut poetry collection, Party Line, Kyle Carrero Lopez's subjects range in scale from Cuban-American relations and Black identity across international borders to the ins and outs of queer nightlife."--Emma Specter, Vogue

"Lopez's deceptively breezy lyrics undercut assumptions about queer, Cuban, and American cultures as his speaker rubs shoulders with intellectuals, artists, and activists amid gossipy chatter and hardcore discourse. . . An urgently timely, eye-opening, and incandescent collection."--Diego Báez, Booklist (starred review)

"Kyle Carrero Lopez's debut poetry collection, Party Line, reanimates a philosophy of the public, kindling a poetics and a politics, as his book's title suggests, of social cues and queues: a breathtakingly fluent crisscrossing between seemingly disparate zones of culture to reveal not just hidden histories but an underrepresented present."--Chris Companioni, The Brooklyn Rail

"Party Line by Kyle Carrero Lopez invites readers to think critically about the many kinds of parties one is beholden to throughout life. . . . Both nostalgic and incisive, these poems use modern nightlife as a prism to illuminate devastating truths about the social politics that determine one's very personhood (and who gets on the guest list for the hottest nightclub in town)."--Alejandro Villa Vásquez, The Rumpus

"Party Line asks, at various points, what rules we need, if any, to keep us safe around each other, to what degree our desires need to be attuned with others', and how we might extract a fairer world from the ruins of American capitalism."--Noah Warren, The Constant Critic

"This poetry collection reveals the political and radical positioning of party spaces, challenging preconceived notions of nightlife and social gatherings. It is about queer and trans revolution making through parties, the lives of Black people in the U.S. and Cuba, and familial and geopolitical tensions that seep into everyday life."--Autostraddle

"In this boisterous and alluring debut, Kyle Carrero Lopez reminds us that the purpose of any party--be it political or disco--is the people inside of it. Urgent, brilliant, and, at the same time, so fun. . . . Party Line will strike your soul like a hand to a drum."--Danez Smith

"In Party Line, Kyle Carrero Lopez brilliantly balances the necessity for beauty and the necessity for sharp, clarifying truth. These poems are electric and fully alive with a radical politic, but also tender, also vibrant with image, also clever and warm."--Hanif Abdurraqib

"With Party Line, Kyle Carrero Lopez brings more equipment to the page than some of the others. He's two-tongued, on top of our idioms and on top of our times. A poet to watch."--Ishmael Reed

"Carrero Lopez's voice is both electric and haunting, moving through queer nightlife, family history, and Cuban American memory. Attuned to every room's vibe and every room's violence, these poems reveal how a body gathers joy and danger in the same breath."--Jasbir K. Puar

"Party Line is a luminous collection--a kinetic treatise on family, politics, and what it is to gather."--Raven Leilani

"Party Line is a masterful choreography of form and feeling: Willi Ninja meets Essex Hemphill; Martha Graham meets Natasha Trethewey. It's the dance track your father plays DJing the party. It's the parts and the parting in the party line. Party Line is a brilliant dance."--Terrance Hayes