Lyrical and profane

It’s no secret we love this guy: Josh Fernandez, former SN&R associate arts editor and current freelancer, writes boldly, honestly and offensively. But the real reason to pick up his first collection of poetry is to watch as a gritty narrative turns suddenly in your palm and becomes a lyric of unabashed rapture. As is his wont, Fernandez kicks off with profanity and blasphemy (“To the Stranger in the Liquor Store Who Told Me Not to Blaspheme” is a beautiful poem that was rejected by SN&R for both, uh, profanity and blasphemy), but soon moves from the shocking to the grief-stricken deep: mourning a missing, schizophrenic father; surviving on the borderlands of American culture; finding love and a raison d’être; even in the tea party: “I’m caught up / in this crazy-ass love / of country— / a horde of bees, protecting / our castle of honey, waiting / for the keeper to leave.”