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Ballad of a Happy Immigrant
A dazzling debut collection of migration, home and homeland from an important Latinx voice.
"It isn't often that one encounters a sensibility so interested in our world - and so compelling in its powers of attentiveness. Leo Boix's poetry has a wide tilt and scope. It sings the doors open." —Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic.
"They are sailors from another century, stalwart / captured on daguerrotype, casually masculine, tender of heart."
In the middle of the last century, the SS General Pueyrredón from Buenos Aires deposits Leo Boix's paternal grandfather on English soil for the first time. In the two years he spends there, he acquires a taste for his new from taking his tea white - muy blanco - to plunging into unfamiliar sensual worlds.
So begins the poet's own journey, arriving in the United Kingdom as a young queer man. Ballad of a Happy Immigrant tells of the life he makes a dazzling collection of what it means to live, love and write between two cultures and traditions. Effortlessly moving between the English imagination and Spanish language, it is a boundless exploration of otherness and home, and the personal transformation that follows between 'loss / and a life / that starts anew.'
"It isn't often that one encounters a sensibility so interested in our world - and so compelling in its powers of attentiveness. Leo Boix's poetry has a wide tilt and scope. It sings the doors open." —Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic.
"They are sailors from another century, stalwart / captured on daguerrotype, casually masculine, tender of heart."
In the middle of the last century, the SS General Pueyrredón from Buenos Aires deposits Leo Boix's paternal grandfather on English soil for the first time. In the two years he spends there, he acquires a taste for his new from taking his tea white - muy blanco - to plunging into unfamiliar sensual worlds.
So begins the poet's own journey, arriving in the United Kingdom as a young queer man. Ballad of a Happy Immigrant tells of the life he makes a dazzling collection of what it means to live, love and write between two cultures and traditions. Effortlessly moving between the English imagination and Spanish language, it is a boundless exploration of otherness and home, and the personal transformation that follows between 'loss / and a life / that starts anew.'
- GenresPoetry
80 pages, Paperback
Published May 1, 2022
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47 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 24, 2021
I closed the door,
touched the floor.
You said: 'I'm here.' We speak
to forget. The door is a door
of a house that we've been to.
It's now. And from there to the sea.
I said: 'Stay. I prepared maté.'
You open youe eyes,
but we leave
anyway.
touched the floor.
You said: 'I'm here.' We speak
to forget. The door is a door
of a house that we've been to.
It's now. And from there to the sea.
I said: 'Stay. I prepared maté.'
You open youe eyes,
but we leave
anyway.
September 22, 2025
tender, caring, surprising, gut-wrenching, clever! this collection deals with a variety of topics & i feel like Boix is really good at describing and witnessing them all while still keeping his poetic voice.
my favorite texts were those which had uncommon form (table variation, the fall, etc) - Boix really excels at story-telling through/ with, say, a poem that is a mirror of itself.
my favorite texts were those which had uncommon form (table variation, the fall, etc) - Boix really excels at story-telling through/ with, say, a poem that is a mirror of itself.
June 29, 2024
//3.5stars//
My favourites:
• Peregrination
• Table Variations (5⭐️)
• Gnarled Forest
• Ballad of a Happy Immigrant (5⭐️)
• The Fall
• Crows
My favourites:
• Peregrination
• Table Variations (5⭐️)
• Gnarled Forest
• Ballad of a Happy Immigrant (5⭐️)
• The Fall
• Crows
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews