My Kill Adore Him - (Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize) by Paul Martínez Pompa (Paperback)

About the Book

My Kill Adore Him interrogates masculinity, race, language, consumerism, and cultural identity in poems that honor los olvidados, the forgotten ones.

Book Synopsis

My Kill Adore Him is a collection of poems from Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize-winner Paul Martínez Pompa. With a unique, independent voice, Martínez Pompa interrogates masculinity, race, language, consumerism, and cultural identity in poems that honor los olvidados, the forgotten ones, who range from the usual suspects brutalized by police to factory workers poisoned by their environment, from the victim of a homophobic beating in the boys' bathroom to the body of Juan Doe at the Cook County Coroner's Office. Some of the poems rely on somber, at times brutal, imagery to articulate a political stance while others use sarcasm and irony to deconstruct political stances themselves.

Review Quotes

"In his breathtaking debut poetry collection, Martinez Pompa bursts onto the contemporary Latino scene with literary guns ablaze. He is precisely what we need right now: a brave poet just as critical of himself as he is of others. Within the pages of this clever and brutally honest text lie the words of an old soul--who just happens to be a young poet. Martinez Pompa's youth and aged wisdom coexist in each and every poem, resulting in a fresh, yet deadly serious new voice that is not to be trifled with. . . . Highly recommended reading for anyone on the lookout for what comes next in Latino poetry." --Multicultural Review

"Like the poet's native Chicago, even when violent or troubling, Paul Martínez Pompa's poems risk beauty. His work possesses a fluidity that appears both effortless and well earned. His is a Chicago Renaissance of one--Gwendolyn Brooks's Bronzeville and Carl Sandburg's 'city of big shoulders' becoming a 'city of broken lovers' and 'an entire city in your ears' in Martínez Pompa's capable hands. Playful and political and passionate, the poems in My Kill Adore Him mark an important debut, one you'll surely adore."--Kevin Young author of Dear Darkness and For the Confederate Dead

"There is so much more going on in this book . . . My Kill Adore Him is an exciting and tough collection of very well-composed and accessible poems. It's been a while since I tore through a book of poetry and really enjoyed the read." --Harriet: A blog from the Poetry Foundation

"This is one tough, smart poet. The poems of Paul Martínez Pompa are gritty and visceral, but never cross the line into sensationalism. They are poems that vividly evoke the urban world, especially Chicago, without ever lapsing into urban cliché. They are poems that seek justice for the Latino community without ever resorting to the overheated language that all too often consigns poetry of social conscience to oblivion." --Martín Espada, 2008 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize judge

". . . a critical tone is set from the opening quotation, lent to the collection by Joe Wenderoth: 'As hypotheticals go, "man" seems to me the most damaging.' Martinez Pompa sets the stage early for an exploration into what makes a man, indeed, what makes humanity. . . . Martinez Pompa illustrates the ways in which there is no recourse when decisions are made across a border in a land beyond imagination." --Post No Ills

"My Kill Adore Him is a collection of poetry from Paul Martinez Pompa focusing on the issues of masculinity, race, and who people are. My Kill Adore Him is an entertaining and thought provoking work, highly recommended." --The Midwest Book Review

"Martinez Pompa's collection engages the urban landscape and how its cultural and historical legacies extended south into the border and Mexico itself. . . . As a first collection, My Kill Adore Him . . . is definitely a find, with its impressive range of Latino literary influences, from Herrera to Andres Montoya, to Martin Espada. With such poetic energy and intensity in one book, there's no doubt that Martinez Pompa's next collection will engrave him on the literary map." --El Paso Times

"Paul Martínez Pompa deconstructs with a deft sword. Straddling literary strategies, no supposition nor paradigm is safe. He slays the stereotypic dragons within as well as without, putting popular culture, elegy, nightmare, personal narrative, identity and gender politics in the same hat, and drawing from the source, Pompa plays a poetic hand for keeps. Every turn of trope is more delightful than the last--a breakaway collection from an exciting new writer." --Lorna Dee Cervantes, author of Drive: The First Quartet

"Paul Martinez Pompa's My Kill Adore Him, winner of the 2008 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize, vividly captures the traumatic experiences of many Latino/a immigrants. . . . Pompa's sensitive eye doesn't take us with the men who find a job for that day, but lingers on the man left behind, the man who will not make any money that day." --Kenyon Review Online

"This is an important book if we care about the lives of men, day-laborers, immigrants, factory workers and those on the urban fringe who don't get a fair shake. And this is an important book if we don't. Paul Martínez Pompa knows how to write; these poems vividly evoke people and lives that urge us toward awareness and honesty and compassion. Poetry can do no better than this." --Valerie Martínez, author of Each and Her and Absence, Luminescent.

About the Author

Paul Martínez Pompa teaches composition and creative writing at Triton College in River Grove, Illinois. His chapbook Pepper Spray was published in 2006.