Darrell Dela Cruz’ new book, This Is A Love Poem, Listen , earns its punctuation mark not only as an exclamation, but in the imperative delivered to the reader: pay attention. An aching honesty shines through these poems that lay bare the complications inherent in any love, whether that of parent, lover, country, or a god. Sometimes desolate, sometimes triumphant, but always with emotional precision, Dela Cruz’ speaker navigates the losses of the past, “like a cross an altar boy struggles to hold up” to arrive at a hard won self-acceptance. “Repeat, repeat. It is one way of learning,” he says, “even through continuous endings.” Listen up. You may find you didn’t really know what a love poem can be after all. A compelling read. Sally Ashton Author Listening to Mars Editor-in-Chief of DMQ Review Santa Clara County Poet Laureate. 2011-2013 ---------- These poems are ocean glass at dawn. They call us to wade in, slowly. We soon realize the struggle of riptides, the com...
This past month and a half has been the busiest month -- working through what my next steps are after my position sun downed, figuring out where and what to apply to, but also how poetry fits into my life now. During this time, I wrote haiku. It's something that comforts me and helps me focus. Three images or parts -- one line at a time, and one word at a time. Sample below: No New Year's Haiku until the third day; cashing my final paycheck. But there were other things going on the end of the year. My boyfriend went to the ER, and I drove up to San Francisco and took care of him for a bit: cooking, taking him to the hospital, watching What's My Line. Constructing poems helps calm my mind. I write a poem a day sort of. Toward the end of this process, poems were written on different digital areas -- for other poets, for gaybrosover30, in a e-writer where I need to type up the poem again. I got there, but I need to ...