"Father told me I should never cry. / What a thing to demand of a waterfall." So writes poet Gustavo Barahona-López in his newest chapbook, Loss and Other Rivers That Devour, which explores more than his experience with grief after mourning the death of his father; it details loss and its many hauntings, toxic masculinity, colonial erasures of language and heritage, and xenophobia's dominance in the U.S.'s immigration policies.

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I'm hoping that people will connect to this idea of mourning, of grief, and the multitude of ways that people can grieve.

“My hope is that other people will see themselves in some of the works, so that they’ll be able to see their own grieving process,” Barahona-López said. “Especially with the pandemic and with the sheer amount of loss as a country we’ve experienced, I’m hoping that people will connect to this idea of mourning, of grief, and the multitude of ways that people can grieve.”

Barahona-López's collection of poems, which was published on Feb. 5 by Nomadic Press, comprises a variety of poetic forms that convey grief, including the elegy, ode, and couplet forms.

"This is a book that calls one to shed artifice and shields and walls, both internal and external, political and familial," writes Raina J. León, author of profeta without refuge. "And it is absolutely necessary right now. Right now." 

Barahona-López moved to Eau Claire with his family at the beginning of the pandemic. He is a Spanish teacher at DeLong, South, and NorthStar middle schools.

He has published academic articles through the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has a micro-chapbook Where Will the Children Play? available online through Ghost City Press.

Snag a copy of Loss And Other Rivers That Devour, at nomadicpress.org.