Commissions y Corridos 

Hakim Bellamy’s Commissions y Corridos is a collection of poems commissioned by the city of Albuquerque from Bellamy, the city’s inaugural Poet Laureate, threaded through with non-commissioned poems (the corridos). Many of the commissioned works are occasional pieces marking mayoral transitions, public art openings, and other events, and these move with the performative energy and sweeping vision and breadth that can readily accommodate an entire citizenry. These poems are funny, vibrant, and poignant, often beading together cultural idioms to entertaining effect: “by mortar and pestle / we make masa of the mesa / as it rolls itself thin as the horizon is yellow / toward the blue corn sky.” 

While many of the poems are, by definition, readily accessible, and, frankly, politic, Bellamy is also capable of confronting more difficult themes. In “Law Enforcement Oath of Honor,” a string of constructive maxims―“I will exercise my compassion / as a police officer / because I am not above the law”―gives voice to the need for police reform. In a poem addressed to his son, the poet examines his own anxieties around racial profiling. Several poems bear witness to painful histories, including the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the struggle for workers’ rights. Bellamy’s perspective on these broader political issues lend the occasional works more nuance without challenging their inspirational purpose. In “ABQ Manifesto,” civic vision and honest anxiety come together in startling yet resonant observations: “We be / close enough to heaven / and clear enough of sky / for the creator / to mouth-to-mouth us alive.”