Ditch Water

"Joseph Delgado has a wild tongue and a lightning-bright imagination. Unlike many young poets, he does not cage his poems in nostalgia. In this splendid collection bones break, liquor and semen salt the skin, sand and sickness erode the heart. Delgado reminds us familial and erotic bonds, rendered in vivid and gritty language, do not always redeem. Queer sex allows Delgado to bravely detail the interplay between masculinity and poverty. An unrelenting physicality abounds. ... Delgado braids the sting of the desert and the ache of emotional turmoil into lyrics that bristle with rain and blood. ...[description by] Eduardo C. Corral."--Page 4 of cover.