Description
Patrilineation, by Carlos Andrés Gómez, was selected by Raina León as winner of the Alta California Poetry Prize. Patrilineation is published in a bilingual edition as part of the Alta California Chapbook Series edited by Emma Trelles.
Currently available for pre-order. Orders will be shipped as soon as possible. Scheduled publication date is June 12, 2026.
From the first poem in Patrilineation, the stakes are high. The author invites us into an early memory, rooted in a tender and fragile part of the body, through a lens of loss: the eyelashes of a child. In these poems, we confront a truth: we live and breathe and move always vulnerable, always at the edge of or in the process of losing. How do we name our lineages, what we have inherited, and transmute the strength that comes from pain into a strength that, itself, multiples the transformational possibilities of love to others and the self? How do we name the political hypocrisies—all men are created equal—while knowing the threats all around you and holding your child, in all his beauty, in your arms? These poems engage questions, guide us into reflection, and agitate us towards action, change, and love.
—Raina León, Final Judge, Alta California Prize
Carlos Andrés Gómez, from New York City, is a Colombian American poet. His poetry collection Fractures (University of Wisconsin Press, 2020) was selected by Natasha Trethewey as the winner of the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. Winner of the Foreword INDIES Gold Medal and the International Book Award, Gómez has been published in The Nation, New England Review, Academy of American Poets’Poem-a-Day series, and elsewhere.
