I Ask about What Falls Away

A new book-length elegy from San Diego's 2023-24 Poet Laureate

Jason Magabo Perez's third collection of poetry, I ask about what falls away, is a book-length elegy set in the streets of San Diego during the current Covid global health crisis. Called "a love letter in a time of divine sorrow" by Muriel Leung (Imagine Us, the Swarm) and a collection that "complicates notions of solidarity, community and justice" by Rachelle Cruz (God's Will for Monsters), this book serves as an intimate grief manifesto against the violence of racism and capitalism. Perez utilizes a critical and playful assemblage of lyric and litany, narrative and distillation, fragment and refrain in order to map his conception of city, identity and history. At once lighthearted and tenacious, his writing centers working-class peoples with an anti-colonial wisdom reminiscent of writers such as Neferti X.M. Tadiar and Claudia Rankine. As Hari Alluri (The Flayed City) summarizes, "if this was an album, I'd have it on repeat."
Jason Magabo Perez (born 1981) received an MFA in writing and consciousness from the New College of California, and a dual PhD in ethnic studies and communication from the University of California, San Diego. He was appointed San Diego's Poet Laureate for the 2023-24 cycle.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Kaya Press
Published: 03/26/2024
ISBN: 9781885030894
Pages: 124