Martinez, John Paul: Alternatives for Succulents

Bull City Press, chapbook

Publication Date: July 14, 2026

Publisher Marketing:

Alternatives for Succulents bends through the varied landscapes of longing, distance, sorrow, and self-discovery. Sprawling from the rural soil of Wisconsin to the unreachable pockets of space, these formally adventurous poems sift through what it means to want, to lose, and to remain tender. Like wind over an open field, they sprawl with breath. John Paul Martinez’s lush, aching debut is a book for the heart that breaks open and still blooms.

“In Alternatives for Succulents, John Paul Martinez presses a palm to the ancient microphone and asks the oldest, most unshakable questions: Who am I? What am I doing here? The poems hover between gravity and flight—tethered to earth, yet always reaching for what flowers at the edge of knowing. Martinez weaves poems ripe with fruit, frozen hummingbirds, and splitting clouds, fracturing forms into pillars of longing, doubt, and quiet wonder. ‘I’m / still accumulating,’ one speaker confesses. ‘No one / expects to / become an / exhibit.’ This is a book of beautiful reckonings, unpacking ‘Nature’s cruel paradox’—tender, strange, and pulsing with life.” —Steven Espada Dawson, author of Late to the Search Party

“Lush and luminous, John Paul Martinez’s chapbook Alternatives for Succulents is, like the poet, ‘in constant bloom.’ Find here, reader: ‘every lugubrious flower,’ canny forms, and deft movement down and across the page–these tender poems propagate longing and delight in equal measure.” —Michelle Peñaloza, author of All The Words I Can Remember Are Poems