"Sheryl Luna’s book PITY THE DROWNED HORSES bears witness not only to the poverty and wonder of the borderlands, to their dynamic and often tragic clash of cultural rivers, but also to an intense, tender, and unflinching sensibility refusing the easy distance of mere reportage. Rarely do we encounter a poet with such associative speed, such free access to her unconscious resources, who simultaneously reaches out with such heartbreaking clarity and sweep of vision. Here we see the moral imagination made both vulnerable and bold by its transfigurative investments, its impassioned music, its raw energy and recovering grace. A dazzling debut." —Bruce Bond
"From Sylvia Plath to popsicle-sellers in Juarez, from Mozart to maquiladoras, this stunning debut collection charts "the way of borders . . . the way things thirst." Remarkable! —Lisa Chavez
"In PITY THE DROWNED HORSES, Sheryl Luna carves out of the El Paso landscape the music of the borderlands where loss and acceptance converge. . . . Luna exquisitely captures—like no other poet before her—the ‘unsung positive capability/ of the desert’; her syntax—sometimes raw and edgy—creates a tableau where everything rushes toward ‘our wild need, all sweat, all shiver.’ The overall effect is simply mesmerizing." —Robert Vasquez
