With the River on Our Face

Prez reveals the strengths and nuances of a universe where no word is "foreign." Her fast-moving, evocative words illuminate the prayers, gasps, touches, and gritos born of everyday discoveries and events. Multiple forms of reference enrich the poems in the form of mantra: ecologist's field notes, geopolitical and ecofeminist observations, wildlife catalogs, trivia, and vigil chants.

"What is it to love / within viewing distance of night / vision goggles and guns?" is a question central to many of these poems.

The collection creates a poetic confluence of the personal, political, and global forces affecting border lives. Whether alluding to El Valle as a place where toxins now cross borders more easily than people or wildlife, or to increased militarization, immigrant seizures, and twenty-first-century wall-building, Prez's voice is intimate and urgent. She laments, "We cannot tattoo roses / On the wall / Can't tattoo Gloria Anzalda's roses / On the wall"; yet, she also reaffirms Anzalda's notions of hope through resilience and conocimiento.

With the River on Our Face drips deep like water, turning into amistad--an inquisition into human relationships with planet and self.