Rattlesnake Allegory

(Paperback)

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These poems are about "the moment inside the body / when joy is not born as much as it is made out of anything / the rest of the world doesn't want."
Using land and South Texas's flora and fauna as references, these poems explore aloneness and manhood as articulations of want, asking the reader to "take a moan by the hand, see what good it does."
Thematically, these poems address loss after transformative experiences, admitting to a reader, "All night I might fathom taking back / something precious / that somehow, / long ago, or not so long ago, I don't know, / ripped off, / yanked from bone, / sloughed off like a husk."
These poems are about getting to know one's body after being distanced from it, of recognizing a queer brown body inextricably belonging to lineages of loss, and then realizing that some new body has emerged from where the old parts were lost, or taken, as in the final sequence of four poems, "Lechuza Sketches," where the speaker manifests the Tex-Mexican folkloric figure of a lechuza, the human-owl hybrid said to inhabit parts of South Texas and the Northern Mexican border.
In the end, this is a collection of poems about more deeply engaging with one's queerness, one's brownness, and understanding that there are parts inside us we never knew existed, or as the Lechuza Sketches speaker offers, "In the world, some part of us is often / unseen / & not glorious. / But what if we are / Glorious. Seen."

Reviews

"Where were these poems when I was lost in a Mictlan of my own makingThey leave a throbbing in the flesh like fanged teeth.Antidote: run for your pen.A gorgeous collectionque me dej con envidia."Sandra Cisneros

"First, I thought desire the core of these gorgeous lyricsbelly hunger, eros, a near ecclesial pang to begood. Joe Jimnez makes palpable a world of things to want, sometimes despite how they might cutmesquite and teeth, thick arms and bedfuls of nopales, tattoos and gleaming gar fish. But then I wonderedwhat are all these owls doing hereHarbingers of death, these raptors rap against the cage of the poets ribs, the poet rapt in loves some insist he die for and some he wouldchooseto die for. This fearless and beautiful book follows a man who knows the difference and loves them all anyway."Douglas Kearney

"There is so much desire, loneliness, and ultimately a longing for love in these sensuous, honest, and searing poems. So many questions, so much beautiful emptiness in return.Joe Jimnez exhibits poetic skill throughoutfrom the marvelous use of repetition, which leads to a kind of intensity and earnestness, to the often-surprising and sparkling imagery. He writes: 'but I also want to make beautiful things. Sometimes, I want others to/see me/as beautiful, too. Not rough, not voracious' Jimnez has made a beautiful voracious thingRattlesnake Allegory, a brilliant book of poems by a poet I will keep my eye on for years to come."Victoria Chang, author of Barbie Chang

"The lyric echoes & queer longing of Joe Jimnezs Rattlesnake Allegorydeftly deconstruct the space between the body & the environment it navigates. For Jimnez, the body itself takes form as a nest braided in hush, & desire a snake that coils within, & stays."Matty Layne Glasgow

"A beautifully rendered meditation on love, desire, and the body. Most powerful when read aloud. Ultimately it's about survival, and I love the way so many different intersecting concerns like being Latinx and existing in nepantla come into play."Rodney Gomez, poet laureate of McAllen, Texas

Author Bio

Joe Jimnez is the author of the poetry collection The Possibilities of Mud and Bloodline, a young adult novel. Jimnez is the recipient of the 2016 Letras Latinas/ Red Hen Press Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared on the PBS NewsHour and Lambda Literary sites. Jimnez was recently awarded a Lucas Artists Literary Artists Fellowship from 2017-2020. He lives in San Antonio, Texas, and is a member of the Macondo Writing Workshops. For more information, visit joejimenez.net