Shadowboxing: Poems & Impersonations
This debut poetry collection centers Josefo, a Chicano adolescent, and mixes boxing, working-class California, family voices, and literary reference. Poems, dialogue, and prose collide to portray the pain and comedy of performing the self.
Work Information
In the rhythm of fists, labor, family, and language exchange blows.
Published by Omnidawn, this poetry collection uses theatrical forms and vernacular energy to depict working-class memory in central California.
Review Summaries
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Reviewers praise its formal daring and narrative momentum. Its rough energy and intellectual range make it a distinctive debut.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Omnidawn Pub
- Published
- 2017-10-03
- Pages
- 95 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 15.24 x 1.02 x 22.86 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781632430434
- ISBN-10
- 1632430436
- Price
- 3210 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Poetry/American
Borrowing the poetic language found in boxing lore and in the Rocky films, Shadowboxing pieces together a poetic portrait of Josefo, a Chicano adolescent working and becoming a poet in the farm territories of Central California. Rios confounds the relationship between author, speaker, and subject within various forms and, at times, across genre. He challenges the usefulness of poetry and stands upon oral histories to demystify Californias overlooked labor class. Rios invites the reader to enter Josefos world of memory, experience, and talk, of packinghouse mentors, storytelling grandmothers, parable-sharing plumbers, smooth talking truck drivers, and infinitely patient literature professors.
JOSEPH RIOS was born in Clovis, California. He is a VONA alumnus, a Macondo fellow, and a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. He lives in Los Angeles.
Reviews
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Ríos is true to his roots and is a great poet !
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Rarely does a book of poetry grip me the way Shadowboxing did. It's tough and tender and tragic and true. It's funny, too. Read this book.
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This collection blew me away. Such a powerful piece of writing.
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It is the right book, edition and condition, that I need for my college semester this fall. This book will be very helpful.