Chicago poet Paul Martínez Pompa kind of frightens me. I just tore through his first collection of poetry, My Kill Adore Him, which was selected by Martín Espada for the 2008 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. This prize is administered by Letras Latinas, the literary program of the Institute for Latino Studies at University of Notre Dame. The two previous recipients of the Montoya Prize are Sheryl Luna and Gabriel Gomez.

I’ve seen Martínez Pompa read before; last year, he was one of a handful of feature poets for The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry anthology reading, hosted by the anthology editor Francisco Aragón at Moe’s Books on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley (you can read Aragón’s Poetry Foundation article here). I remember one of the poems Martínez Pompa read at the time, “Amputee Etcetera,” which I found hilarious and troubling.
At this point I’m cracking up, knowing it’s a terrible thing, my need to laugh this hard.
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