Chopper! Chopper! Poetry from Bordered Lives

Available
4.9/5.0
21,000+ Reviews
Bookshop.org has the highest-rated customer service of any bookstore in the world
Product Details
Price
$18.95  $17.62
Publisher
Arktoi Books
Publish Date
Pages
112
Dimensions
7.06 X 9.03 X 0.34 inches | 0.47 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9780989036108

Earn by promoting books

Earn money by sharing your favorite books through our Affiliate program.

Become an affiliate
About the Author

Verónica Reyes is a Chicana feminist jota poet from East Los Angeles, California. She earned her BA from California State University, Long Beach and her MFA from University of Texas, El Paso. Her poems give voice to all her communities: Chicanas/os, immigrants, Mexican Americans, and la jotería. Reyes has won AWP's Intro-Journal Project, an Astraea Lesbian Foundation Emerging Artist award, and was a Finalist for the Andrés Montoya Poetry award. She has received grants and fellowships from Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Ragdale Foundation, and Montalvo Arts Center. Her work has appeared in Calyx, Feminist Studies, ZYZZYVA, and The New York Quarterly. She is a proud member of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS) and Macondo Writers' Workshop.
Reviews

""Chopper! Chopper!" replenishes the landscapes of East L.A. and the lives that give it shape. Reyes resurrects old-time shops and hangouts. They memorialize the land alongside edifices of refuse, sterile towers, man-made deserts and rivers, machines that suffocate the sky, fields locked in the historical cycle churning out the fieldworker's woe. Queers, dandies, cholos, mariachis the same as 'Chumash, Pomo, Modoc' ramble these streets. In these dramatic monologues, the perfect poetic mode to retool history, Reyes' wit leaves a mark. Her young self marvels at 'old coors or budweiser botes, tab, aspen soda cans . . . tossed by the lake at Lincoln Park, half buried in the sandbox just like the statue of liberty in planet of the apes.' In this cool, sad, funny collection, East L.A. startles us like 'a pinche far, faraway land' it really is."
--Kristin Naca, author of "Bird Eating Bird"

"In this book there is no time to run home chillando or licking your wounds--the gente in Reyes' recollections pull you into a world where crooked tortillas and marimacha swagger are less the image of otherness, but a symbol of nosotros'ness. Through Reyes' barrio lyricism, we, the others, do not cross over to become the norm, but come together as strands of hair, distinct, yet slicked together by the force of love, coraje, and Tres Flores."
--Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano

"Chopper! Chopper!" replenishes the landscapes of East L.A. and the lives that give it shape. Reyes resurrects old-time shops and hangouts. They memorialize the land alongside edifices of refuse, sterile towers, man-made deserts and rivers, machines that suffocate the sky, fields locked in the historical cycle churning out the fieldworker s woe. Queers, dandies, cholos, mariachis the same as Chumash, Pomo, Modoc ramble these streets. In these dramatic monologues, the perfect poetic mode to retool history, Reyes wit leaves a mark. Her young self marvels at old coors or budweiser botes, tab, aspen soda cans . . . tossed by the lake at Lincoln Park, half buried in the sandbox just like the statue of liberty in planet of the apes. In this cool, sad, funny collection, East L.A. startles us like a pinche far, faraway land it really is."
Kristin Naca, author of "Bird Eating Bird"

In this book there is no time to run home chillando or licking your wounds the gente in Reyes recollections pull you into a world where crooked tortillas and marimacha swagger are less the image of otherness, but a symbol of nosotros ness. Through Reyes barrio lyricism, we, the others, do not cross over to become the norm, but come together as strands of hair, distinct, yet slicked together by the force of love, coraje, and Tres Flores.
Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano"

Chopper! Chopper! replenishes the landscapes of East L.A. and the lives that give it shape. Reyes resurrects old-time shops and hangouts. They memorialize the land alongside edifices of refuse, sterile towers, man-made deserts and rivers, machines that suffocate the sky, fields locked in the historical cycle churning out the fieldworker s woe. Queers, dandies, cholos, mariachis the same as Chumash, Pomo, Modoc ramble these streets. In these dramatic monologues, the perfect poetic mode to retool history, Reyes wit leaves a mark. Her young self marvels at old coors or budweiser botes, tab, aspen soda cans . . . tossed by the lake at Lincoln Park, half buried in the sandbox just like the statue of liberty in planet of the apes. In this cool, sad, funny collection, East L.A. startles us like a pinche far, faraway land it really is."
Kristin Naca, author of Bird Eating Bird

In this book there is no time to run home chillando or licking your wounds the gente in Reyes recollections pull you into a world where crooked tortillas and marimacha swagger are less the image of otherness, but a symbol of nosotros ness. Through Reyes barrio lyricism, we, the others, do not cross over to become the norm, but come together as strands of hair, distinct, yet slicked together by the force of love, coraje, and Tres Flores.
Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano

"