For My Children Who Are Poor: Ruminations Of A Blues And Bruised Soul

"For My Children Who Are Poor" is an ambitious collage reminiscent of Jean Toomer's "Cane." The stories and poems in this collection are deeply intelligent, angry, heavy, and mournful. And like the blues, Torres has successfully related the bitter pain of what it means to be human in an inhumane world. The men and women in these short stories contend mightily against the inexorable weight of the suffering of life. Stand witness as a mother and her daughters are evicted from their home with no one in the world to whom they can turn for help. See a young man reject and rebel against the stifling love of his mother. Or watch a man, mired in self-hatred, overcome his inability to love, really, himself and his family. "For My Children," though dark, illumines, or exposes, the complexity of the human experience.

Diego Torres closes his debut work with a provocatively insightful comment on the state of civilization. "For My Children Who Are Poor is, in a phrase, beautifully lyrical.