From poems about the speaker's relationship with loneliness after the suicide of his lover to poems about discovering that dark part of oneself that he never knew existed, this collection is about the transformations of a queer brown body and the echoes of those shifts found in South Texas's feathers, shadows, and trees.
Where were these poems when I was lost in a Mictlan of my own making? They leave a throbbing in the flesh like fanged teeth. Antidote: run for your pen. A gorgeous collection que me dejó con envidia.
—Sandra Cisneros
First, I thought desire the core of these gorgeous lyrics—belly hunger, eros, a near ecclesial pang to be good. Joe Jiménez makes palpable a world of things to want, sometimes despite how they might cut—mesquite and teeth, thick arms and bedfuls of nopales, tattoos and gleaming gar fish. But then I wondered—what are all these owls doing here? Harbingers of death, these raptors rap against the cage of the poet’s ribs, the poet rapt in loves some insist he die for and some he would choose to die for. This fearless and beautiful book follows a man who knows the difference and loves them all anyway.
—Douglas Kearney
There is so much desire, loneliness, and ultimately a longing for love in these sensuous, honest, and searing poems. So many questions, so much beautiful emptiness in return. Joe Jiménez exhibits poetic skill throughout—from the marvelous use of repetition, which leads to a kind of intensity and earnestness, to the often-surprising and sparkling imagery. He writes: “…but I also want to make beautiful things. Sometimes, I want others to/see me/as beautiful, too. Not rough, not voracious…” Jiménez has made a beautiful voracious thing—Rattlesnake Allegory, a brilliant book of poems by a poet I will keep my eye on for years to come.
—Victoria Chang author of Barbie Chang
The lyric echoes & queer longing of Joe Jiménez’s Rattlesnake Allegory deftly deconstruct the space between the body & the environment it navigates. For Jiménez, the body itself takes form as “a nest braided in hush,” & desire a snake that coils within, & stays.
—Matty Layne Glasgow
"A beautifully rendered meditation on love, desire, and the body. Most powerful when read aloud. Ultimately it's about survival, and I love the way so many different intersecting concerns like being Latinx and existing in nepantla come into play."—Rodney Gomez, poet laureate of McAllen, Texas
Featured at the 2021 San Antonio Book Festival alongside authors like Sandra Cisneros, author of House on Mango Street.
