Overview

Paper america: New & Selected Poems gathers the poetic vision of Texas Poet Laureate Emmy Pérez, a voice rooted in the landscapes and communities of the Texas–Mexico border. Drawing from her acclaimed collections Solstice and With the River on Our Face, alongside powerful new work, Pérez offers poems that confront the realities of immigration, border walls, cultural invisibility, and violence, while celebrating resilience, motherhood, and the enduring ties of family and heritage. Writing from McAllen and the Rio Grande Valley, Pérez continues the legacy of Gloria Anzaldúa and Chicana/Latina writers who turned la frontera into a literary ground of strength and survival. Whether she is memorializing the children of Uvalde, reflecting on the river that sustains border communities, or capturing everyday encounters in classrooms and neighborhoods, her lines of poetry are precious—each one crafted with compassion, clarity, and urgency. With Whitmanesque scope yet firmly grounded in Mexican American identity and borderlands experience, Pérez’s poetry bridges the personal and the political, reminding readers of the power of words to bear witness, resist injustice, and cultivate hope. Paper america is both an introduction to one of Texas’s most vital poets and a career-spanning testament to the necessity of art in difficult times.

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9780875659657

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Emmy Pérez, the 2020 Texas Poet Laureate, is the award-winning author of With the River on Our Face and Solstice. A Chicana poet and professor based in McAllen, Texas, she has dedicated her life to uplifting the voices of the Rio Grande Valley and borderlands communities. Her work blends lyrical beauty with social witness, honoring Mexican American heritage, the landscapes of la frontera, and the lived realities of families too often rendered invisible. Frequently compared to Gloria Anzaldúa, Sandra Cisneros, and Langston Hughes, Pérez is known for a powerful poetic voice that bridges activism and artistry.

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