Here to Stay - by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo & Janine Joseph & Esther Lin (Paperback)

About the Book

"A lush tapestry of poetry created by undocumented and undocu-adjacent writers, Here to Stay is an invitation to be a part of an integral component of contemporary American poetry"--

Book Synopsis

FINALIST FOR THE INTERNATIONAL LATINO BOOK AWARD'S "BEST POETRY ANTHOLOGY"

A lush tapestry of poetry and prose, Here to Stay is an invitation to engage with a new field of contemporary American poetry.

"I cannot separate my work from my undocumented identity." --Aline Mello

From the indomitable writers and activists Janine Joseph, Esther Lin, and Marcelo Hernandez Castillo comes an anthology gathering some of the best work from currently and formerly undocumented poets, as well as poets from mixed status families from across the undocumented diaspora in America. Here to Stay is a collection of honest, searing, and evocative poems interspersed with short personal narratives. Deeply intimate, these works explore how to exist in the space between the familiar and the unknown, between the safety of silence and the desire to share. Highlighting the significant insights of undocumented poets, this brilliant compendium challenges misconceptions of what it means to live and write as an undocumented person in modern America.

Beautiful, poignant, and timely, this must-read collection is a rich and essential new chapter in the ongoing story of the eclectic immigrant experience and the United States itself.

Review Quotes

A San Francisco Chronicle "Poetic Perspectives from 'Undocumented Diaspora' & New Book for a Season of Change"
"In Here to Stay, fifty-three writers invite their fortunate readers into poetry's 'space of freedom'--a territory that affords refuge, revelation, and yes, revolt, in lives too often circumscribed by the cruel boundaries of citizenship 'status'. I'd gladly devote a full week to meditating on each poet's finely wrought verse and stirring artist statement to make a year's worth of communion with the remarkable diasporic community here assembled. I hope you'll join me in this practice." - Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life and Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast
"Here to Stay is a powerful expression of persistence and endurance. Despite the innumerable difficulties of living as undocumented--such as hiding their identities and often bearing the brunt of deprivation and destitution--the continuing efforts of meaning-making of the experiences and articulating them is essential." - Latinx Pop Magazine
"A collection at once both carefully and playfully curated, Here to Stay resists easy labels in favor of shining the spotlight on writers in some way affected by the U.S. immigration systems' politics of exclusion. By turns joyful, furious, contemplative, funny, and revolutionary, the featured poets in this anthology invite further reading in the world of undocupoetics." - Alejandra Oliva, author of Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith and Migration
"The undocumented migrant is one of modernity's greatest heroes and, legally speaking, cruelest jokes. This breathtaking collection of poetry across the migrant diaspora does what politics cannot: speak honestly about the paradox of being hated yet invisible. It's the soul food I needed." - Aarti Shahani, bestselling author Here We Are and award-winning journalist, formerly undocumented
"The poems in this anthology howl, perspire, fall in love, reimagine myth, lose language, find language, have faith in poetry, disbelieve in poetry, repurpose the brutal language of ICE spreadsheets, turn to consider the border, turn away and consider everything but the border--and in this way, page by page, the poems in this anthology are among the best ever written. They will shake you to your core." - Ingrid Rojas Contreras, author of the Pulitzer-Prize finalist The Man Who Could Move Clouds
"A full-throated tapestry of real Americana, Here to Stay gets in your face, in your head, and deep into your heart." - Jose Antonio Vargas, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen
"By presenting such multitudes to its readers, "Here to Stay" makes for a perfect collection for readers to dip in and out of and deepen their understanding of this complex issue." - San Francisco Chronicle