Overview

Edward Vidaurre's El VIEJO takes the reader on a resigned journey into life, much like a determined man walking to the gallows but with a much much different gasp at the end. -Juan Ochoa is the author of the novel Mariguano and its prequel Pa'l Otro Lado and Other Tales of Bad Hombres and Nasty Women. This collection by Edward Vidaurre, El VIEJO, is an intimate work of wonder. Edward takes the time to ""write about everything, catastrophes and small sadnesses/"" He weaves you through his memories, all the legends, all the tenderness in the abundance of a life lived. To open up each page is to sit with his voice, his musings, his heartbreaks, his loves, his insides. He does not hide a thing in this collection. He has ""written many poems about this solace and hurt."" You cannot look away from this masterful voice; instead, take each line, like a breath, let it fill you up. This is a collection that will leave you full. -Lupe Mendez, Texas Poet Laureate Emeritus (2022 - 2023)

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El VIEJO by Edward Vidaurre gives the 'coming of age' genre a new turn through a suite of American poems about the battle of desire against time. We read of baseball, radios, cars, knives, and cops pulling over young men with guns under the dashboard and lifelong dreams of bullets whizzing by. El viejo aches with a nostalgia for sweet sorrows of yesteryears, such as the first kiss of deep desire-and feels the lingering emptiness of a boyhood mitt that missed a legendary stray ball that flew by into the stands. Whether the poet harps on a detail of loss accepted or tries to rekindle the ol' time feeling by singing along to his mother's favorite love song on vinyl-Vidaurre offers us a big-hearted take on the pains of aging. It's not bitterness that endures in these poems but a palpable desire for what's ahead. It's been over 30 years, I haven't been to a baseball game in over 10 years or so. Now I just relish in the homeruns caught on television out there on left field especially where I celebrate the foul balls and any ball hit into a crowd -Tess O'Dwyer, co-edited Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas (Routledge) and Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi (Pittsburgh)

Author Information

Edward Vidaurre is an award-winning poet and author of nine collections of poetry. He is the 2018-2019 City of McAllen, Texas Poet Laureate, 2022 inductee to the Texas Institute of Letters, and publisher of FlowerSong Press. His writings have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Texas Observer, Los Angeles Review of Books, and other journals and anthologies. Vidaurre resides in McAllen, Texas with his wife Liliana, and daughter Luisa Isabella. David A. Romero is a Mexican-American spoken word artist from Diamond Bar, CA. He is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of El Martillo Press. Romero is the author of My Name Is Romero (FlowerSong Press, 2020) and Diamond Bars 2 (Moon Tide Press, 2024). Romero has received honorariums from nearly a hundred colleges and universities in thirty-four different states in the USA and has also performed live in Mexico, Italy, and France. His poem, ""You Were Born a Tree"" was sent to the moon by NASA in 2025 as part of the Lunar Codex. Romero's work has been published in literary magazines in the United States, Mexico, England, Scotland, Canada, and Hungary. Romero has opened for Latin Grammy winning bands Ozomatli and La Santa Cecilia. Romero's work has been published in anthologies alongside poets laureate Joy Harjo, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Luis J. Rodriguez, Jack Hirschman, and Tongo Eisen-Martin. Romero has won the Uptown Slam at the historic Green Mill in Chicago; the birthplace of slam poetry. Romero's poetry deals with family, identity, social justice issues, and Latine culture. Matt Sedillo has been described as the ""best political poet in America"" as well as ""the poet laureate of the struggle."" His work has drawn comparisons in print to Bertolt Brecht, Roque Dalton, Amiri Baraka, Allen Ginsberg, Carl Sandburg, and various other legends of the past. Sedillo was the recipient of the 2017 Joe Hill Labor Poetry award, a panelist at the 2020 Texas book festival, a participant in the 2012 San Francisco International Poetry Festival, the 2022 Elba Poetry Festival, and the recipient of the 2022 Dante's Laurel. Sedillo has appeared on CSPAN and has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Axios, the Associated Press among other publications. Sedillo has spoken at Casa de las Americas in Havana, Cuba, at numerous conferences and forums such as the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, the National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education, the National Association of Chicana/Chicano Studies, the Left Forum, the US Social Forum, and at over a hundred universities and colleges, including the University of Cambridge, among many others. Matt Sedillo is the author of Mowing Leaves of Grass (FlowerSong Press, 2019) and City on the Second Floor (FlowerSong Press, 2022). Both of which are taught at universities throughout the country. Sedillo is the current literary director of The Mexican Cultural Institute of Los Angeles.

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