Loteria

Reviews / Votes

"In LoterIa-which draws its form from the Mexican game of chance yet manages to convey a sense of inevitability with every line-Esteban RodrIguez presents intimate and compassionate portraits of family members. Among the most vivid are those of his father, whose crossing of the desert is imagined in kaleidoscopic, multivalent sequences both harrowing and hallucinatory, and his mother, whose high spirits and physical sufferings are vividly reconstructed and turned for moving insights. Deeply companionable, offered in a voice that is simultaneously energetic and guided by confident restraint, these poems are full of love and clarity, an uncommon and welcome combination."-John Hennessy, author of Coney Island Pilgrims

"Esteban RodrIguez's LoterIa is the story of the crossing. The hunger, violence, struggle, and death experienced by those who take on this dangerous venture is itself one kind of lottery, some make it and some don't. There is fortune and luck being sought and some is imposed, but either way, these poems show us the vulnerability and humility of a family who has crossed the board in search of the loterIa, not the game, but the promise."-Richard Boada, author of We Find Each Other in the Darkness

"This special edition release of Esteban Rodriguez's LoterIa will be his book of poetry, originally released in 2023, republished as a deck of 54 cards. If this isn't an amazing remix of the classic game and of the book as a form that I've been waiting for, then I don't know what is."-Reyes Ramirez in Letras Latinas Blog

"Between. Not here, not there. Not this, or that. Somewhere but not someplace. Not easy to put your, wrap your, place your-but confidence, and masterful touch with language, is what makes Esteban RodrIguez a credible, incredible even, witness to the between bisecting the Mexican and American experience."-Foreword Reviews

"Written in single-stanza vertical oblongs, the poems evoke portraits, which seems fitting, since many of them sketch an individual in thumbnail narratives. . . . But the poems make sense as a deck of cards, too, as sets of symbols shuffled across the pages. The stories span from past to future and float free of a linear narrative."-Sylee Gore in Poetry Foundation's Harriet Books

"a collection that speaks to the migrant universal and the challenge of overcoming the unknown"-Full House Literary

"[In LoterIa] the poet memorializes his father's hard labor, alluding to the Atlas myth and describing his versatile work boots. The familial struggle for survival has buoyancy in RodrIguez's telling."-Rebecca Foster in Shelf Awareness