José Olivarez's Groundbreaking New Collection of Poems Explores Every Kind of Love
13 Feb 2023
In Promises of Gold, a groundbreaking new collection of poems from award-winning spoken word artist José Olivarez, every kind of love is explored―self, brotherly, romantic, familial, cultural. Grappling with the contradictions of the American Dream with unflinching humanity, he lays bare the ways in which “love is complicated by forces larger than our hearts.”
The son of Mexican immigrants, Olivarez gained wide attention when his debut book of poems, Citizen Illegal, became a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Award and won the 2018 Chicago Review of Books Poetry Prize. An inspiring voice and sought-after speaker, he uses the lenses of immigration, in-betweenness, gender, class and family to examine the joys and sorrows that embody life in the spaces between Mexico and America.