Southwest Reconstruction

The riveting debut from Gutiérrez takes readers on a journey through the many and varied visions of the “American” Southwest. Balancing a wide-ranging historical consciousness with critical indignation, Gutiérrez explores the Southwest as a physical and psychic space still negotiating the legacies of settler colonialism. The collection roughly takes the form of a road trip with emblems of empire coming and going along the roadside before they become defamiliarized relics: “you see the/ Don’t Tread On Me/ A snake hissing on a moth-eaten t-shirt/ waving on a rebar pole poking/ out of a transmuted ocean floor.” Gutiérrez’s poems refuse to fall into easy categories, interrogating the contested terrain of identity with incisive clarity: “My co-signer sabotaged [...] 231 males living in Tubac/ 23 males born outside Mexico, and now there is/ a New Mexico territory with one drop of Spanish blood/ for all of us to share in like ejído.” Throughout, the poet powerfully addresses questions of how individuals occupy space: “I walked through/ the concrete structures./ They didn’t look like/ they came from the land.// Do I look that way?” It’s a muscular and illuminating trek through a fraught landscape. (Dec.)