Lotería

A traditional game of chance popular in Mexico and in Mexican American culture, LoterÍa is poetically rendered in Esteban RodrÍguez’s eighth collection, with each poem revolving around one of the fifty-four cards. Using the image presented as a catalyst for exploration and self-reflection, RodrÍguez unveils the familial journey between two countries and cultures through both a surreal and narrative lens. Here, a mother unearths a severed hand in the desert. A father discovers his heart among a heap of discarded items. And at one point, the speaker—toggling between his role as witness and son—finds himself in a canoe on a river contemplating the meaning behind an authentic experience. Lyrical, insightful, and honestly engaging, LoterÍa sheds light on a world that doesn’t so easily reveal itself, adding to RodrÍguez’s prolific and important oeuvre.

In LoterÍa—which draws its form from the Mexican game of chance yet manages to convey a sense of inevitability with every line—Esteban RodrÍguez presents intimate and compassionate portraits of family members. Among the most vivid are those of his father, whose crossing of the desert is imagined in kaleidoscopic, multivalent sequences both harrowing and hallucinatory, and his mother, whose high spirits and physical sufferings are vividly reconstructed and turned for moving insights. Deeply companionable, offered in a voice that is simultaneously energetic and guided by confident restraint, these poems are full of love and clarity, an uncommon and welcome combination." - John Hennessy, author of Coney Island Pilgrims"Esteban RodrÍguez’s LoterÍa is the story of the crossing.  The hunger, violence, struggle, and death experienced by those who take on this dangerous venture is itself one kind of lottery, some make it and some don’t.  There is fortune and luck being sought and some is imposed, but either way, these poems show us the vulnerability and humility of a family who has crossed the board in search of the loterÍa, not the game, but the promise." - Richard Boada, author of We Find Each Other in the Darkness

Esteban Rodriguez is the author of five poetry collections, most recently The Valley (Sundress Publications 2021), and the essay collection Before the Earth Devours Us (Split/Lip Press 2021). He is the Interviews Editor for the EcoTheo Review, Senior Book Reviews Editor for Tupelo Quarterly, and Associate Poetry Editor for AGNI. He currently lives in central Texas.