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A debut collection that examines US-Cuba tensions, transnational Black identity, and revolutionary gatherings
Kyle Carrero Lopez's electrifying debut collection centers three interconnected forces: social life, US-Cuba relations, and the lives of Black people in the United States and Cuba. Through familial, satirical, and geopolitical lenses, Party Line considers how countries—and people—wield power over those they have othered.
The collection features a series meditating on tensions embedded in party spaces. Carrero Lopez challenges assumptions that these spaces are apolitical or purely escapist, revealing unexpected connections between individuals' actions and those of the state. His work expands bridges between US and Cuban art by developing an urgent poetics around the material conditions of the US embargo and challenging whitewashed images of Cuban Americans in the US imagination.
Alternating between humor and lyric severity, playfulness and political critique, these poems negotiate contradiction with linguistic dexterity and critical consciousness, proving that political poetry can be both serious and joyously alive.
A debut collection that examines US-Cuba tensions, transnational Black identity, and revolutionary gatherings
Kyle Carrero Lopez's electrifying debut collection centers three interconnected forces: social life, US-Cuba relations, and the lives of Black people in the United States and Cuba. Through familial, satirical, and geopolitical lenses, Party Line considers how countries—and people—wield power over those they have othered.
The collection features a series meditating on tensions embedded in party spaces. Carrero Lopez challenges assumptions that these spaces are apolitical or purely escapist, revealing unexpected connections between individuals' actions and those of the state. His work expands bridges between US and Cuban art by developing an urgent poetics around the material conditions of the US embargo and challenging whitewashed images of Cuban Americans in the US imagination.
Alternating between humor and lyric severity, playfulness and political critique, these poems negotiate contradiction with linguistic dexterity and critical consciousness, proving that political poetry can be both serious and joyously alive.
A debut collection that examines US-Cuba tensions, transnational Black identity, and revolutionary gatherings
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Reviews
"Lopez's deceptively breezy lyrics undercut assumptions about queer, Cuban, and American cultures as his speaker rubs shoulders with intellectuals, artists, and activists amid gossipy chatter and hardcore discourse. . . An urgently timely, eye-opening, and incandescent collection."
Diego Báez, Booklist (starred review)
"This poetry collection reveals the political and radical positioning of party spaces, challenging preconceived notions of nightlife and social gatherings. It is about queer and trans revolution making through parties, the lives of Black people in the U.S. and Cuba, and familial and geopolitical tensions that seep into everyday life."
Autostraddle
"In his debut poetry collection, Party Line, Kyle Carrero Lopez's subjects range in scale from Cuban-American relations and Black identity across international borders to the ins and outs of queer nightlife."
Emma Specter, Vogue