Coz / Marco Valerio Reyes Cisfuentes / 2023

Coz / Marco Valerio Reyes Cisfuentes / 2023

Marco and I traded books during the Trinacional festival de poesia in Chiquimula, where he wore #BlackLivesMatter and Pride shirts in even the most conservative settings, where he was told not to read the poem about the war criminal who funded one of the private schools. Most poetry collections I have read primarily about death sink into the sentimental. You can read the minor scale in the writing, the moaning grief. Coz writes about death with a punk’s stoicism and probing eye. In “Oda al Arbol” or “Ode to the Tree,” he laments the “cowardly act of writing,” wrestling with the fear of expression in the aftermath of a dictatorship. In “Ultima Voluntad” or “Last Will,” he reflects upon the visions of his dying father. Coz is a chapbook for those unafraid of looking the world in the eye, of noticing the cadavers they prefer we ignore. 5/5