Other Fugitives and Other Strangers

A testimony of sexuality in times of violence, this journey into the intimate language of the male body is freighted with danger and desire and expressed through a dark eroticism reminiscent of García Lorca and Cavafy.

"A brilliant poet of two nations, he is a treasure found." Sandra McPherson

"While the tension that never leaves these poems is, on the surface, erotic, what lies beneath the sensual energy is an awareness that sex, as the articulation of love, is tainted by our notions of how pure love should be. It's González's lyricism that joins the physical and the ideal, and demonstrates that the impulse to speak is a form of the impulse to touch. González's honesty is itself a kind of poetry: there is an exacting focus here that speaks of hope without using the word. If we can look, we can change. These are poems of transformation." Bob Hicok

"Follow Rigoberto González into these poems and you'll come to a place where a kiss is a fig or a rock, where a fist is a rose, or a finger is a barb on a hook. Inside this dazzling kaleidoscope of words, González whirls us through the delights and terrors of erotic love, and into the forbidden, hidden, dangerous body of desire. He was brave enough to write these unflinching, brilliant poems. Are you brave enough to read them?" Minnie Bruce Pratt

Poetry. Gay and Lesbian Studies. A testimony of sexuality in times of violence, this journey into the intimate language of the male body is freighted with danger and desire and expressed through a dark eroticism reminiscent of Garcia Lorca and Cavafy. "A brilliant poet of two nations, he is a treasure found"--Sandra McPherson. Rigoberto Gonzalez is the author of four books--So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water Until It Breaks (a 1998 National Poetry Series selection), two bilingual children's books, and a novel, Crossing Vines, which was a ForeWord Magazine Fiction Book of the Year. Gonzalez is a Guggenheim Fellow and a member of PEN and the National Book Critics Circle. He is an associate professor of English and Latino studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a contributing editor to Poets and Writers magazine.

The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and of various international artists' residencies, Gonzales is also a member of PEN and of the National Book Critics Circle. He reviews books by Latina/o authors for the El Paso Times, is Associate Professor of English and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and is Contributing Editor to Poets and Writers.