The Book of Ruin by Rigoberto González

The Book of Ruin by Rigoberto González reads like both a series of stories and magical realist poetry. It’s engaging and fascinating and provoking. The text is divided into two books. The first, The Book of Lost Souls, is subdivided into three sections, plus a couple independent poems. The sections are titled A Brief History of Fathers Searching for Their Sons, The Incredible Story of Las Poquianchis of Guanajuanto, and Hagiography of Brother Fire and Sister Smoke. I’m listing this because don’t the titles just make you want to dive into the linked poems in the sections?? The second book, The Book of Ruin, is a post-apocalyptic series of poems that offer page-turning suspense. These are seriously entertaining poems. But there’s a seriousness behind them, loss and environmental ruin underlie the narrative. Powerful stuff. Buy here.

From A Brief History of Fathers Searching for Their Sons: 1. Parable

There’s a man who sits on the shore every morning, / staring at the sea. And the sea stares back, defiantly. / It won’t release its secrets. I’ll give you an answer / if I take what you’re offering me, says the sea. // When the man begins to weep, the sea yawns / with indifference. Tears are abundant here . . .

From The Incredible Story of Las Poquianchis of Guanajuanto: 1. Las Animas I

. . . The called us the Gorgons, the ugly sisters // that turned / flesh into stone. / We beg not to disagree. / We put the fear of God in your small / human hearts, that’s true. It’s what mirrors do.

From The Book of Ruin: 5. Signs of the End of the World

. . . When the animals began to flee / and the birds headed east, we should have guessed / the doom had come upon us then. But the right path / was not to panic but to study these changes, discuss / policy, hold town meetings—negotiate. Catastrophe / was just another balloon to deflate. By the time / the ground beneath our feet began to shake, it / was already too late to save our cities, which had / turned to liquid we couldn’t drink. Next came thirst. . .