(Dis)placement

(Dis)placement is a constellation of portraits of displaced people–immigrants, refugees, and their families–leaving their communities to cross the southern border of the United States. These poems have a dark and haunting light that emanates from each of their cores. They lift off the page and consume the reader in their deceptively neat line-lengths and rhythms, entrancing with every image.

In (Dis)placement, Rodriguez explores the hazardous journeys across borders and landscapes many are forced to undertake when violence, destruction, and the constant fear of death are subjected upon a land and people. His language is evocative and lyrical, and challenges the reader to confront the reality of suffering, (Dis)placement unveils the harm inflicted upon bodies and terrains, and documents the will to survive in the face of hopelessness and loss.

In the lineage of Eduardo Corral and Natalie Scenters-Zapico, Rodriguez depicts the border landscape with chilling atmosphere and the undeniable struggle of those attempting to cross it evokes deep empathy and horror at the injustices perpetrated against them.