Promises Of Gold Av Jose Olivarez

<p><b>LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD</b><br><br><b>''[<i>Promises of Gold</i>] has put Olivarez at the forefront of not only first-generation poetics, but of all poetry. This one here is for us -- the ones who hide garden shears in their poems'' Javier Zamora</b><br><br>Love is at the heart of everything we do, and yet it is often mishandled, misrepresented, or narrowly defined. In the words of Jos¿livarez: ''How many bad lovers have gotten poems? How many crushes? No disrespect to romantic love -- but what about our friends? Those homies who show up when the romance ends to help you heal your heart. Those homies who are there all along -- cheering for us and reminding us that love is abundant.''<br><br>Written in English and combined with a Spanish translation by poet David Ruano,<i> Promises of Gold</i> explores many forms of love and how ''a promise made isn''t always a promise kept,'' as Olivarez lays bare the ways in which ''love is complicated by forces larger than o