Pérez-Cortés, Alejandro: Ima and Coli Are the Tree That Was Never a Seed

Translated by Sean Manning (Akashic Books, paperback)

Publication Date: December 7, 2021

Publisher Marketing: The new winner of the Paz Prize for Poetry, granted by the National Poetry Series, is the author's impressionistic homage to his hometown of Colima, Mexico.

Ima and Coli Are the Tree That Was Never a Seed is Alejandro Pérez-Cortés's poetic presentation of the history of Colima, Mexico, published here in both English and Spanish. The tree is an element/character in the book that appears and disappears throughout. Some poems are set in an ancient pre-Hispanic Colima; while others reflect the reality of a modern-day Colima, sadly stigmatized and eroded by violence perpetrated by the narcos.

In his introduction, preeminent Cuban poet José Kozer praises Pérez-Cortés: Ima and Coli Are the Tree That Was Never a Seed comprises a voice that I consider poetic and that should be cared for and listened to with true interest. A voice that encompasses all, one that seeks to integrate, remake, and modify normative language when necessary, and to distort language that allows a better perception of the present and of everything that is historically behind a contemporary poet.