Unrequited Love and Other Things of Equal Importance by Alejandro Ruiz del Sol

Alejandro Ruiz del Sol’s Unrequited Love and Other Things of Equal Importance is a heavy, buzzing assemblage of nostalgia and memory cut with razorlike bits of poetic insight. Set mainly in the steam of a physical and metaphorical Florida, it is a slow-burning read in the best sense. It grapples with the oddities of the everyday, probes beneath simple objects like water towers, causeways, and flowers to find causes (or reject them), and pokes us to marvel like modern existentialists. I was quickly and happily caught in the labyrinth of predators and bruises, palm trees and alligators. Then delighted by the way the poems were punctuated with lines like these: “Tomorrow, open a window, / breath in what is there // This is how we know” and “It is so easy for predators / to punch bruises into bruises”. Exploratory and thematically adventurous, this collection introduces us to a strange new voice. I am eager to read more of Ruiz del Sol’s work.

–Rodney Gomez, author of Arsenal With Praise Song

“The best advice I can offer/ is to find a sky to look up in to/ even if it’s overcast.” Alejandro Ruiz del Sol’s writing extends a hand to the broken-hearted and well-loved selves we all carry. Unflinching in the examination of self and inner motivations, he simultaneously reminds us to look up once in a while and see the world around us.

–Genevieve Kersten, Co-Editor of Okay Donkey

In this collection Ruiz del Sol pulls away the romanticized face of Florida and shows us the payday loans, frozen wieners and imagined turkey legs beneath. Alejandro refuses to let his poems root in easy narratives or soar in lofty lyrics. This collection insists we recognize a place as the place it is. It is brave and tired and restless. It Floridas us all.

–John A. Nieves, author of CURIO