Stepmotherland

<p><b><i>Stepmotherland</i> is a tour-de-force debut collection about coming of age coming out and coming to America.</b></p><p>Winner of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize <i>Stepmotherland</i> Darrel Alejandro Holnes's first full-length collection is filled with poems that chronicle and question identity family and allegiance. This Central American love song is in constant motion as it takes us on a lyrical and sometimes narrative journey from Panamá to the USA and beyond. The driving force behind Holnes's work is a pursuit for a new home and as he searches he takes the reader on a wild ride through the most pressing political issues of our time and the most intimate and transformative personal experiences of his life. Exploring a complex range of emotions this collection is a celebration of the discovery of America the discovery of self and the ways they may be one and the same.</p><p>Holnes's poems experiment with macaronic language literary forms and prosody. In their inventiveness they create a new tradition that blurs the borders between poetry visual art and dramatic text. The new legacy he creates is one with significant reverence for the past which informs a central desire of immigrants and native-born citizens alike: the desire for a better life. <i>Stepmotherland</i> documents an artist's evolution into manhood and heralds the arrival of a stunning new poetic voice.</p>