Don’t be fooled by the roaring tigers on the cover of Tomás Q. Morín’s latest book of poetry, Machete. They aren’t ferocious; they won’t devour you and spit out your bones. Morín’s craft is more playful and tender than that. His poems about fatherhood will rest on your heart like a giant paw, and his use of circus imagery is more likely to conjure up a tiger jumping through a flaming hoop than attacking. Machete’s overarching themes spark and crackle throughout, as he tackles parenthood, pandemic life, identity, racism, and apocalyptic doom. “Our country is a circus tent,” Morín writes. Each day warps like a funhouse mirror.
Machete is Morín’s third book of poetry. He caught the poetry bug while pursuing a Ph.D. in Hispanic and Italian Studies at Johns Hopkins University. In a moment of boldness, Morín sent Philip Levine, a favorite poet, some of his writing. Levine’s reply was encouraging enough that Morín decided to earn a master’s degree instead, turning his attention to crafting poems for his first book, A Larger Country, which won the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. Morín currently serves as an assistant professor in creative writing at Rice University. He also works as a literary translator, most notably translating Pablo Neruda’s The Heights of Macchu Picchu.
Machete highlights Morín’s versatility as a poet who fuses both content and form. His persona poems, dramatic monologues spoken through the voice of characters and objects, are imaginative with a foreboding edge. In “Duct Tape,” Morín allows the toolbox staple the chance to speak. The tape announces how its role had changed from patching holes in jeans to holding together a sign that says, “The End is Near.”
