Books in the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize series

My Kill Adore Him is a collection of poems from Andres Montoya Poetry Prize-winner Paul Martinez Pompa. With a unique, independent voice, Martinez Pompa interrogates masculinity, race, language, consumerism, and cultural identity in poems that honor los olvidados, the forgotten ones, who range from the usual suspects brutalized by police to factory workers poisoned by their environment, from the victim of a homophobic beating in the boys' bathroom to the body of Juan Doe at the Cook County Coroner's Office. Some of the poems rely on somber, at times brutal, imagery to articulate a political stance while others use sarcasm and irony to deconstruct political stances themselves.

Filled with the nuanced beauty and complexity of the everyday-a pot of beans, a goat carcass, embroidered linens, a grandfather's cancer-A Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying journeys through the inherited fear of creation and destruction. The histories of South Texas and its people unfold in Laurie Ann Guerrero's stirring language, including the dehumanization of men and its consequences on women and children. Guerrero's tongue becomes a palpable border, occupying those liminal spaces that both unite and divide, inviting readers to consider that which is known and unknown: the body. Guerrero explores not just the right, but the ability to speak and fight for oneself, one's children, one's community-in poems that testify how, too often, we fail to see the power reflected in the mirror.