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>>The Singing Shark

ISBN: 0-927534-61-4
83 pp. | paper only | $10.00

Rane Arroyo

1997 Pushcart Prize

1997 Carl Sandburg Literary Award

In these poems, Rane Arroyo leads the reader on a journey through the kaleidoscopic contemporary world where Byron, Madonna, classical myth, and TV and movie culture interact. Along the way he offers a humorous and sometimes biting examination of popular images of Latinos - from Don Juan to Desi Arnáz to West Side Story - as well as poignant reflections on two literary predecessors, William Carlos Williams and Reinaldo Arenas. With wit and intelligence he skewers Anglo perceptions of Latino masculinity and blurs the boundaries between high and low, straight and gay, Anglo and Latino cultures. Whether mocking, playful, or elegiac, the poems reveal a deep concern for the construction of personal and cultural identity in the midst of contradictory messages and expectations.

Rane Arroyo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Toledo in Ohio. He is both a playwright and poet. Previous books include The Red Bed, Columbus's Orphan, Television Poems, and Death Cab for Cutie. He is the winner of the 1996 Stonewall Chapbook Award for The Naked Thief.