Two young, wage-earning Chicanos find themselves in an odyssey searching for a dinner other than cheese and vanilla pudding. A mom and her two sons split a cheeseburger three ways. A nameless speaker spends eight hours on his knees pulling out weeds.

These are the types of people and situations that inhabit the poems of The Date Fruit Elegies, my first full-length collection of poetry to precede my award-winning and well-reviewed chapbooks. The first drafts of some of these poems in The Date Fruit Elegies were written at the age of twenty, when I started writing “serious” poems in workshops. The raw energy of a writer finding his voice was too rare for me to toss aside my earlier poems, so for eight years I tinkered, revised, and chiseled out what I hope to be good, finished poems. I hope you feel that way, too.

My poetics is dictated by the importance of imagery, fresh phrasing, rhythm, and “the turn.” I hope to write a poem that is vivid in language and engaging in emotion. When the poems in The Date Fruit Elegies began to fall into place, I held hopes in my heart that my readers will feel they have walked around Indio in the work worn-out shoes of my characters.

Otherwise, welcome to john-olivares-espinoza.com where you can find out more information about my work and going-abouts. Click on the links above for your desired destination. This site is young and under construction, but please come back later for updated information and more pages.
 

E-Mail: contactme@john-olivares-espinoza.com