From Independent Publisher
In these 28 poems, the editors provide an introduction to "Ricardo Sanchez' English-language poetry," a poetry alive with English and Spanish from formal to prison slang to dialect. In other words, this is Sanchez' own language, one rich with experience, emotion, and meaning. After a brief foreword by Nicolas Kanellos and a self-introductory poem by Sanchez, the poems are arranged chronologically, divided into two sections. Part one, "La Pinta/ The joint" surveys the writer's "nine years of prison and hurts," full of anger, sensitivity, and engagement. Out on parole, between two sentences, he works in a factory and notes that compared to the factory, the prison "was understandable/ after all, convicts commit crimes/but what crimes do the poor commit/to be sentenced by fate/to toil out empty lives." Part two, "Barrios of the World" continues to speak to the indignities people are forced to suffer, but it speaks to joy also. In "Ayer, Ay, Ayer" Sanchez writes, "i felt/ some of the rancid bitterness/of nine scabby ycars/flake off." And joy rises from the contemplation of children in general and the poet's children in particular: "the power of embraces/as well as the beauty/of familial kisses" fill the closing poems of the book. Highly recommended.

Book Description
From Literary Arts: "Romero's book is not so much a collection of poems as it is a narrative sequence, a body of related pieces which follow the title character from birth to the brink of death. Celso is Everyman, his roles ranging from shabby Christ figure to buffoon, drunkard, and ladies' man, alternately unkempt, lascivious, pathetic, witty-cruel, curious, and outrageous."