In this stunning debut, poet Jose 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. Combining wry humour 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 the dynamic tradition of the BreakBeat Poets anthology, The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext celebrates the embodied narratives of Latinidad. Poets speak from an array of nationalities, genders, sexualities, races, and writing styles, staking a claim to our cultural and civic space. Like Hip-Hop, we honor what was, what is, and what's next.

Love is at the heart of everything we do, and yet it is often mishandled, misrepresented, or narrowly defined. In the words of Jose Olivarez: 'How many bad lovers have gotten poems? How many crushes? No disrespect to romantic love -- but what about our friends? Those homies who show up when the romance ends to help you heal your heart. Those homies who are there all along -- cheering for us and reminding us that love is abundant.' Written in English and combined with a Spanish translation by poet David Ruano, Promises of Gold explores many forms of love and how 'a promise made isn't always a promise kept,' as Olivarez lays bare the ways in which 'love is complicated by forces larger than our hearts.' It is an attempt to reckon with colonial legacy and the reality of what those promises and dreams have borne out for Mexican descendants. 'I wrote this book to imagine and document an ongoing practice of healing,' writes Olivarez, 'healing that requires me to show up for myself, my community, my friends, my family, and my loves every day.' Whether readers enter this collection in English or Spanish, these extraordinary poems, written with empathy and humour, are sure to be cherished for their illuminations of all the rhythms of life -- and love.

"Citizen Illegal is right on time, bringing both empathy and searing critique to the fore as a nation debates the very humanity of the people who built it." -Eve Ewing, author of Electric Arches In this stunning debut, poet Jose 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. Jose Olivarez is the son of Mexican immigrants. He is a co-host of the podcast, The Poetry Gods. A winner of fellowships from Poets House, The Bronx Council On The Arts, The Poetry Foundation, and The Conversation Literary Festival, his work has been published in The BreakBeat Poets and elsewhere. He is the Marketing Manager at Young Chicago Authors.

In the dynamic tradition of the BreakBeat Poets anthology, The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT celebrates the embodied narratives of Latinidad. Poets speak from an array of nationalities, genders, sexualities, races, and writing styles, staking a claim to our cultural and civic space. Like Hip-Hop, we honor what was, what is, and what's next.