Pandemic Prater: Pastel Palliatives

About the Book

The voice in these poems describes his experience resulting from the 2020 pandemic. He lives alone, confined to his house with multiple emotions resulting from the books he reads, the movies the author watches, the dreams he has, and the world's news. The amalgamation of all these experiences unchained a myriad of emotions that become the poems of the book. There is are numerous intertexts from world literature intermingled with his nightmares and the world news—particularly the United States political events of the pandemic year. Some of the poems relate to hallucinating nightmarish experiences, while others reflect the day's political information. Those readers familiar with world literature will discover numerous allusions and fragments of literary works by literary giants.

About the Author

Genaro J. Pérez holds a B. A. in English and Spanish from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Tulane University. He is Professor of Hispanic Literature at Texas Tech University. His primary scholarly interest is Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries Spanish and Latin American literature as well as Chicano literature. His academic publications include: Formalist Elements in the Novels of Juan Goytisolo; La novelística de J. Leyva; La novela como burla/juego: siete experimentos novelescos de Gonzalo Torrente Ballester; La narrativa de Concha Alós: Texto, pretexto y contexto; Ortodoxia y heterodoxia de la novela policiaca hispana: Variaciones sobre el género negro; Rabelais, Bajtin, y formalismo en la narrativa de Sergio Pitol; Subversión y de(s)construcción de subgéneros en la narrativa de Rosa Montero. His books of poems include: Prosapoemas; Spanish Quarter Notes; French Quarter Cantos; Ten Lepers and Other Poems: Exorcising Academic Demons; and Estelas en la mar: Cantos sentimentales. His narrative includes: The Memoirs of John Conde and French Quarter Tales. He is Co-Editor and Co-Publisher of Monographic Review/Revista monográfica (Volumes I-XXVIII); and is Co-Editor of the journal Dura.