Evaporating Rage

In Evaporating Rage, Norm Mattox’s poems seethe with precisely articulated rage and pain.

From police murders to the institutional racism that permeates this country, he eloquently elucidates our desperate need for social and political change. “George Floyd choked to death / on the acid and bile rising in his throat, / mixed with fear hate and racism / blocking his windpipe” (from “positional asphyxia”).

The content gradually shifts to an exploration of an inner world that reconciles rage with endurance and resilience. These poems throw out lifelines of hope and appreciation for the wisdom of embracing life in spite of its unpredictability and adversity as in these lines in “from horizon to horizon”: “balance your accounts on a full crumb like two slices of life / the past and the future both rising and falling / on both sides of the equal sign.”

Read this book to vitalize your spirit and catalyze our fight for justice!

—Kimi Sugioka, poet Laureate of Alameda, California