I’ve been highly anticipating Olivarez’s second full length collection and this did not disappoint! I know it’s just the start of the year but I’m anticipating that this book will be my favorite poetry collection of the year. This was an incredible book and I can’t wait to pick it back up and start rereading it when it’s published!

If I had to name a poetry collection that was a love letter to family, friends, community, and heritage and culture, this is definitely one of them. I loved that this was an intimate but very relatable collection. You moved through the emotions with José as you read the poems. You feel everything he has written (and sometimes more). One unique thing I loved about this poetry collection is that the poems were both in English and Spanish. You get a complete picture of each poem reading them in both languages. I wish we had more books written this way.

Although, this is the first book by José Olivarez I've read, I absolutely love it. I can't wait to read more of his work.

Thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. for an ARC of this book. This book comes out February 14, a perfect day for this amazing love letter to released into the world.

Agh, omg. I loved this so much.
First, thank you to Henry Holt Publishing, José Olivarez, and NetGalley for granting me early access to this absolute gem of a book before it was published on February 14, 2023.

Olivarez spits BARS in the poetry world, as he notates the stereotypes and discrimination that come along with being Latinx in the states when white people cast shade at his livelihood and think he's the janitor. We hear him break down the spewed hate caught at every angle and dissect the relationships he's held near for his lifetime. There are talks of Mexican heaven and dying in ways no one ever expected. And then, to have the latter portion of this book be a bilingual masterpiece was enough to make me break down.

I loved this collection so much and am looking forward to more works of art.

✨ Review ✨ Promises of Gold by José Olivarez

"My people I am poly with the tortillas”

This is one of my favorite poetry collections I've ever read. Bringing together love, family, friendship, and food together with topics of capitalism, migration, colonization, and so much more, Olivarez creates a masterful collection -- one that I was dying to share with friends as I read.

It speaks to some many experiences of the moment, and I loved his poems about tortillas (see the quote above), as well as what we've loved and lost through quarantine and systemic racism in the U.S. This beautiful collection is one that I'll surely be drawing from in class and gifting to friends.

I'm HERE for anything he writes now and forever!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: poetry
Pub Date: 07 Feb 2023
**Volume is in English and translated into Spanish.**

Thanks to Henry Holt and Co. and #netgalley for an advanced e-copy of this book!

Thank you netgalley for this ARC
i do love some poetry and honestly i really enjoyed this collection of poems it was very vulnerable at times and touched down on alot of important topics like toxic masculinity, culture and the way our world is and the horrible aspects of it. This book was split into alot of different parts so i feel like the reader can definitely find a favorite poem or many! This book also addressed how every kind of love—self, brotherly, romantic, familial, cultural—is birthed, shaped, and complicated by the invisible forces of gender, capitalism, religion, migration, and so on which is super important.

Overall great work and a quick read i couldnt put it down!