C.W. Emerson: Luminous Body, Glittering Ash
This is a poignant, fine-wrought book of poise and lamentation—by turns, erotic, austere, and
lyrical—with a keen attention to natural beauty. Its centerpiece poems, “The Impossible Time”
and “Coldwater Canyon Suite,” convey the saga of what it meant to be young, gallant, and
compass-less in the shocking early years of the AIDS epidemic. Emerson’s intrepid survivor’s
task, his elegiac portraiture and vivid witness pierce us out of necessity.
—Cyrus Cassells, 2021 Poet Laureate of Texas and author of
The World That the Shooter Left Us
LOVE & BONE
If we are only bodies—
flesh and muscle, breath and bone,
temporary, fleeting,
motes of dust on a butterfly wing—
then let our time on earth
be a calendar of feasts:
days that bow, deep and shy,
as if to hide how fine they are;
and let the extravagant lace of evening
come and cover us like a veil—
we fortunate lovers,
living our lives,
here, in our carnal kingdom.
C.W. Emerson’s work has garnered numerous international accolades, including two awards
from Poetry International: the C.P. Cavafy Poetry Prize (2018) and co-winner of the 2023–24
Summer Chapbook competition. He is the author of Danger Face (Wayfarer Books, 2025),
winner of the 2024 Homebound Publications Poetry Prize; a chapbook, Off Coldwater Canyon
(The Poetry Box, 2021); and the prize-winning portfolio The Thoracic Diaries, from Poetry International.
His work has been anthologized in several poetry compilations containing themes
relevant to the LGBTQIA+ communities. Dr. Emerson is a retired clinical psychologist. He
divides his time between Southern California and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Visit his
website at theolderamericanpoet.com.
Visit C.W.'s page at WorldEnoughWriters.com
Purchase C.W.'s collection from your favorite retailer:
Raúl Sánchez: When We Were Water
In Raúl Sánchez’s When We Were Water, selections from his books All Our Brown-Skinned Angels
and When There Were No Borders travel to us with abundant new work that continues to
experiment in forms and shapes, with odes and acrostic poems, visions and flashbacks, elegies
and spirit-journeys, but always with humor and human vitality and a golden thread connecting
to Latin roots. This work is free and playful, jazzy and up close, exploding with intensity. These
are questing poems, liberation poems, devotional poems, ecstatic poems, comic poems, sincere
and lived and opening out.
—Douglas Cole, author of The Cabin at the End of the World
FOR DON VICTOR SÁNCHEZ
Ye’ huatl-in ta’tli / This Is My Father
When I hear certain sounds…
they echo the memory of my father,
when he was a young lad, mining
in Real del Monte silver mines.
Where silver dust settled in his lungs.
The sound of steel scratching, banging
brings back the memory
of the adult I knew,
steadfast, energetic, and always friendly.
Two relics of his I hold,
his bracero contract
and a yellow paper paystub,
taking “savings aside”
—they never got back.
Photos in sepia
vaguely show his features;
no need for clarity,
I can see him
clearly—
through my watery eyes.
Raúl Sánchez is a self-taught poet whose work reflects the immigrant experience as well as his
own story. He volunteers as a bilingual mentor in middle schools, detention centers, housing for
the homeless and disabled, as well as with immigrants and laborers. He leads community “Poetry
in the Park” readings May–September in northeast Seattle. During COVID, he installed a
“Poetry Box” in front of his home filled with single poems for the neighbors to put in their
pockets as encouragement. He wrote the libretto for the Sinfonía “Moctezuma” monologue in
response to Vivaldi’s Motezuma, original version for Orquesta Northwest. Some of his poems
have become permanent public art in Seattle and Shoreline.
Visit Raúl's page at WorldEnoughWriters.com
Purchase Raúl's collection from your favorite retailer:
