Loss and the Other Rivers that Devour

by Gustavo López

LOSS AND OTHER RIVERS THAT DEVOUR charts the evolution of one son's grief as he reconciles his identity with the expectations of his late father. In this journey of becoming, Gustavo Barahona-López struggles with and is shaped by loss and its many hauntings: toxic masculinity, colonial erasures of language and heritage, and the legacy of the United States' xenophobic immigration policies. Poetry.

Genres: Poetry

60 pages, Paperback

Published February 5, 2022

About the author

Trabaja como médico en Manizales, labor que intercala con su pasión por la escritura. Es autor de los cuentos «Una casa morada al doblar la esquina», con el que ganó el Concurso de Cuento Ciudad de Barrancabermeja en 2001, y «De cómo Johny el leproso se anticipó a la muerte», ganador del Concurso de Cuento de la Cámara de Comercio de Medellín en 2010. En 2018 publicó su primera novela «Los dormidos y los muertos», un texto histórico que muestra cómo fue la vida en Colombia durante el gobierno de Laureano Gómez hasta la muerte de Camilo Torres.

Reviews

[Courtney LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of poems focusing on the death of the poet's father and the legacy - both good and bad - he left behind, and fighting your way out from expectations of what a man should be.

from Built to Mourn: "Sometimes I convince myself / I was built to mourn / programmed by mitochondrial / DNA or perhaps conditioned by scarcity / I mourn the past the chances / not taken the healing postponed / paternal sacrifices to unmeritocratic gods / subjugation of my ancestors / by my ancestors / my blood strangles itself / my dead and yours"

from Waterfall Duplex: "Father told me I should never cry. / What a thing to demand of a waterfall. // I cannot ask more of myself, a waterfall."

from Green, How I Want You: "I sprouted without light / Without the carrying / There was so much blooming / The red, the fire, the thorn / The belt, the rod, the vitriol / My bruises bloomed green"