The Life Assignment

Maldonado, Ricardo Alberto

ISBN 10: 1945588543 / ISBN 13: 9781945588549

Published by Four Way Books, Tribeca, 2020

About this Item

8vo, 86 pp.

Seller Inventory # 114557

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Life Assignment
• Publisher: Four Way Books, Tribeca
• Publication Date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1945588543
• ISBN 13: 9781945588549
• Binding: softcover
• Edition: 1st.
• Condition: Fine copy
• Seller catalogs:
  • Poetry

About this title

Synopsis

The speaker of the poems in The Life Assignment is reviewing his history. As if sorting through a box of photographs, the speaker sorts through relationships, trying to discern what was healthy from what was exploitative. Concepts of love are turned over and over in these poems: romantic love, love of family, love of country, self-love (or lack thereof). Often the speaker finds that what at first appeared to be caring, was insincere all along. When tenderness is in short supply, how can one protect himself? How can one find home? In his debut collection, Ricardo Alberto Maldonado bends poems through bilingual lyrics that present spartan observation as evidence for its exacting verdict: “We never leave when life is elsewhere. The clemency of men disappears / as does the light, tarring the roofs.” An electric debut collection.

About the Author

Ricardo Alberto Maldonado was born and raised in Puerto Rico. He is the co-editor of Puerto Rico en mi corazón and the recipient of fellowships from CantoMundo, the New York Foundation for the Arts and Queer|Arts|Mentorship. He lives in New York, where he serves as managing director at 92Y’s Unterberg Poetry Center.