Partial Interview
Ángel García
Poetry
6 December 2023
We walk alongside the river, and I, several feet from what we’ve
last said to one another. I ask, softer than a desert breeze, did your ever
love you? When stops and crosses arms, I’m reminded why I’ve stopped
asking questions. don’t remember where crossed. Here. No, maybe there.
If there is no beginning, here is no end. There, across the edge of the border, we
watch a boy stare into another country. I stare at the boy, here. You’ll never know
what he sees, says to me. left country like father left me. What
carry in blood, I made sure to never pass down. If you’re wondering now,
reader, what meant. Me too. When we continued to walk along the river, you
could have confused its current for someone crying. It wasn’t my . It wasn’t me.
It was only .
Ángel García, the proud son of Mexican immigrants, is the author of Teeth Never Sleep (University of Arkansas Press), recipient of a CantoMundo Poetry Prize, an American Book Award, finalist for a PEN America Open Book Award, and finalist for a Kate Tufts Discovery Award. His work has been published in the American Poetry Review, McSweeney's, Crab Orchard Review, RHINO, Connotation Press, Tinderbox, Huizache, Miramar, Waxwing, The Acentos Review, The Packinghouse Review, and The Good Men Project among others. He has received fellowships from CantoMundo, Community of Writers, Vermont Studio Center, and MacDowell. He currently teaches in the MFA Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.