Reborn by Abraham Rodriguez

On the one hand, I’m happy for the interest in poetry that the viral success of Rupi Kaur has brought mainstream. On the other, well, you get the feeling that everyone feels that they can write poetry now.

And yes, to a certain extent, everyone can write poetry. But too often writers confuse epigraphs with epigrams, and churn out the former while utterly convinced that they’re producing the latter. Abraham Rodriguez is a talented performer and a writer with plenty of potential who has also, alas, fallen victim to this mindset. There are some really good poems in this second collection of his, but there are also several baffling choices in the shorter works that speak, I believe, to his relative youth (he’s 24!) and perhaps to a need for a more rigorous cutting process, if not outright rethinking of the shape of the finished book.

Honestly, as I was reading this collection, I kept feeling less like it was a completed entity and more like the blueprint for what could be a really impressive memoir or novel in verse. The progression of the poems goes from Mr Rodriguez’s childhood; his struggles with the church and the abuse he suffered; the pleasures and heartbreak of sex and romance, and his experiences in Hollywood, as well as the body image issues he suffered as someone who must, of necessity, trade on his looks to succeed. He writes on all these subjects with honesty and raw emotion, so there’s no doubting the creative core that lies at the heart of this endeavor. But while this collection works just fine altogether, too few of the poems are capable of standing alone. “Welcome to the closet” and “Counting my calories” are fortunately some of the stronger pieces. “Whose fault is that?” and “We take turns”, on the other hand, aren’t anywhere near as clever as they’re trying to be.

That said, I do strongly feel that even those pieces would work quite well incorporated into a larger verse form. Plucked out of the whole and with a spotlight shone on them as individual poems, they elicit — and I hate to say this — cringe, but they would add so much strength to a broader narrative explicitly built to tell a coherent story. Because Mr Rodriguez’s story is fascinating, even as he displays it only in disjointed bits and pieces here. If he brought it all together like Jacqueline Woodson does, for example, in her own verse memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, it would so greatly focus the impact of everything he has to say. And I don’t think he’d shy away from trying something so different from the poetry mainstream, given how the titles of his poems come at the end of his verses and how he includes the Spanish versions of several works alongside the English. This collection felt very much like a book yearning to coalesce around a narrative. Fortunately for the poet, he shows every indication of being able to keep honing his craft in that direction.

Anyway, I very much hope that that’s where Mr Rodriguez’s writing career is heading. His photography isn’t bad, tho the pieces that play with color and contrast are far more interesting than some of the oddly drab Hollywood exterior shots. Honestly, I’m impressed that he finds the time to do all he does, between his acting career and owning a home decor brand. His poetry isn’t quite where it needs to be yet, but the potential is definitely there.

Reborn by Abraham Rodriguez was published June 4 2024 by Central Avenue Poetry and is available from all good booksellers, including