Lotería

In LoterÍa—which draws its form from the Mexican game of chance yet manages to convey a sense of inevitability with every line—Esteban RodrÍguez presents intimate and compassionate portraits of family members. Among the most vivid are those of his father, whose crossing of the desert is imagined in kaleidoscopic, multivalent sequences both harrowing and hallucinatory, and his mother, whose high spirits and physical sufferings are vividly reconstructed and turned for moving insights. Deeply companionable, offered in a voice that is simultaneously energetic and guided by confident restraint, these poems are full of love and clarity, an uncommon and welcome combination." - John Hennessy, author of Coney Island Pilgrims

"Esteban RodrÍguez’s LoterÍa is the story of the crossing. The hunger, violence, struggle, and death experienced by those who take on this dangerous venture is itself one kind of lottery, some make it and some don’t. There is fortune and luck being sought and some is imposed, but either way, these poems show us the vulnerability and humility of a family who has crossed the board in search of the loterÍa, not the game, but the promise." - Richard Boada, author of We Find Each Other in the Darkness