"I am the author of my own memories, a child of his own making," states Padilla in his prologue, and this collection of twenty-five urgent, moving poems reaches out with a semi-lyrical free verse style which startles and slides, prods and evokes with Mayan beasts and cello notes, the legend of the Nagual, and the decapitated body found in a wrecked car thirteen years after the accident. Yes, this is a hodgepodge of versatile occurrences and manic voices. "I feel the slow coming to an end/ like unwinding wire from a wire roll/ or the drip buckets easy sway/ against the wind/ I feel the coming end." Padilla is a poet who deals with realistic coincidence, class-conscious images, and American myths. He overcomes time, reaches into his autobiographical self and pulls out poetry which is active and indulgent... "...like twelve against one/ just take the baseball bat I thought/ and go lecture them about 'one-on-one'/ but my son's matter-of-fact tone 'pop, they're all packing guns'"--R.R. Lee Etzwiler
This review originally appeared in TapRoot Reviews #5,
Contact the editor, luigi-bob drake, at Burning Press
Copyright Burning Press 1994, 1996.