The Boy KingdomThe Boy Kingdom

These forty-four prose poems, artful yet accessible, presented in both Spanish and English versions, immerse us in the boy kingdom that the Cuban American poet Achy Obejas inhabits with her two sons. Her words move us from the wild and divine spirit of boyhood to the everyday rhythms of family life--toy trucks, television, sick days home from school--and to stories of her Cuban roots and her divorce from her wife. Obejas captures the universal nature of motherhood while also limning the uniqueness of her queer, multilingual, and multicultural family: the way her elder son looks at her as if she's 'dancing with the dead' when she speaks Spanish; her boys' preference for mac 'n' cheese over tostones; the day one of her sons comes home from school disquieted, then finally spills it: 'A couple of boys yelled at him: your moms are queer!' At once intimate and expansive, rendered in vivid and masterful strokes of language, 'The boy kingdom' offers a joyful gift to mothers, sons, and readers everywhere"--Page 4 of cover.