Promises of Gold
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Promises of Gold
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Narrated by:
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José Olivarez
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Written by:
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José Olivarez
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David Ruano
About this listen
Longlisted, National Book Awards
"Listeners are privy to Olivarez framing each poem with rays of insight, to interspersed live recordings and selections recorded only for the audio....Olivarez gifts listeners gems of healing in this poetic affirmation of community and love."—Booklist
"A portion of the audiobook is performed in front of a live audience, which is such a smart choice for a collection of poetry. The audience’s reactions lend a sense of community you can only get from a live reading, and Olivarez feeds off this energy."—BookPage
"José Olivarez's narration of his poetry collection offers listeners a connection with his love circle."—AudioFile
"Seemingly tailor-made for audio, this powerful book is a must-purchase. Olivarez’s invitation to share moments of his history, culture, love, and joy is wholly affecting."—Library Journal
This program is read by the author, featuring elements of the live event recording, with commentary from the author about why he wrote the poems.
A groundbreaking collection of poems addressing 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.
Love is at the heart of everything we do, and yet it is often mishandled, misrepresented, or narrowly defined. In the words of José Olivarez: “How many bad lovers have gotten poems? How many crushes? No disrespect to romantic love—but what about our friends? Those homies who show up when the romance ends to help you heal your heart. Those homies who are there all along—cheering for us and reminding us that love is abundant.”
Written in English and combined with a Spanish translation by poet David Ruano, “Promises of Gold explores many forms of love and how “a promise made isn’t always a promise kept,” as Olivarez grapples with the contradictions of the American Dream laying bare the ways in which “love is complicated by forces larger than our hearts.”
He writes, “For those of us who are hyphenated Americans, where do we belong? Promises of Gold attempts to reckon with colonial legacy and the reality of what those promises have borne out for Mexican descendants. I wrote this audiobook to imagine and document an ongoing practice of healing—healing that requires me to show up for myself, my community, my friends, my family, and my loves every day.”
Whether listeners enter this collection in English or Spanish, these extraordinary poems are sure to become beloved for their illuminations of life—and love.
A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt & Company.
©2023 José Olivarez (P)2023 Macmillan AudioWhat the critics say
“The truth is: Technically, I don’t understand poetry. I never have. I miss everything in it. It’s a language I can’t process. And, for me anyway, that’s what makes Jose special. Because when he writes poetry, I don’t need to understand it—at least, not in the traditional sense—because I FEEL it. I feel his words under my fingertips like velvet. I feel his words in my chest like I’m looking at a painting that moves me in a way I can’t fully explain. And, again, for me anyway, that’s more important.”—Shea Serrano, bestselling author of Hip Hop (And Other Things)
“Visceral and moving.”—Kate Baer, #1 New York Times Bestselling author of What Kind of Woman
““My people I am poly with the tortillas” might be my favorite single sentence I have ever read in a poem. Get the book for that line alone. Promises of Gold is a heartfelt and hilarious series of odes to the large and small joys of life. It is also a battle rap and a clapback to all the death-making institutions we live under at every level. I could call this book soft and I would only be telling a half-truth. This is a collection that delights in the softness of every kind of love from familial to homie to culinary to romantic. But this is also a book that is hard on colonizers, and cruel billionaires, and capitalist exploitation. This book shines bright as the gold that got us into all this colonial mess.”—Nate Marshall, author of Finna