LATINO POETRY REVIEW aka LPR

Editor's Note

Latino Poetry Review (LPR) is a response to the current state of poetry criticism. If contemporary verse receives limited attention in literary studies today, Latino poetry gets scant, if any attention at all. This doesn't seem to be the case with prose: a few years ago, two Notre Dame doctoral students spoke to me about the fiction panels at the "Latina Letters" summer conference in San Antonio, Texas. No such panel, as I recall, focused on poetry. LPR is a response to that.

Latino Poetry Review is a pro-active gesture, one aimed at promoting the book review: other than the El Paso Times, one would be hard pressed to name a newspaper that runs, with any regularity, reviews of poetry collections by Latinos (or any poets for that matter). Mainstream literary journals fare no better. LPR is a response to that, as well.

And yet Latino poetry has never been more various and vibrant than it is today. With this in mind, and moving beyond what I've called elsewhere an "ethos of complaint," Letras Latinas launches this biannual journal in the hopes of "spurring inquiry and dialogue," as our mission states. In other words, we seek to publish prose that engages a variety of perspectives, both critical and aesthetic...

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Having said that, LPR is one gesture among a number of gestures that attempt to showcase, critically, what's happening in the field. Just today, for example, I came across two reviews on two volumes, respectively, that are worth our attention. One is a review by LPR contributor Craig Santos Perez, who reviews Emmy Pérez's Solstice. (Emmy is a contributing editor at LPR, by the way). Craig, to my mind, is one the most prolific and brightest poetry critics out there. LPR is immensely fortunate to count him among one of its reviewers.

A more recent volume that's getting merited attention is Suzanne Frischkorn's American Flamingo, published by Didi Menendez. Here's the review. To the degree that it's possible, Letras Latinas Blog would like to be alerted about online reviews that are out there that focus on Latino or Latina poets so they can be linked here, as well.

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Publishers, Editors, Poets:

Please send review copies of chapbooks and books that you would like LPR to consider for review to the following address (In our next number, which is slated for Fall of 2008, we'd like to start including a "Books Received" section):

Francisco Aragón
Latino Poetry Review
1608 Rhode Island Ave. NW Suite 348
Washington, DC 20036