I ask about what falls away

A new book-length elegy from San Diego's 2023-24 Poet LaureateJason Magabo Perez's second full-length book of poetry is an extended elegy set in the alleyways and Pacific-bound boulevards of San Diego, California during the current global health crisis. Called "e;an antidote to despair"e; (Muriel Leung, Imagine Us, The Swarm) and poetry that "e;complicates notions of solidarity, community and justice, distilling the quotidian into something sacred"e; (Rachelle Cruz, God's Will For Monsters), I ask about what falls away serves as an intimate grief manifesto against the daily violations of racial capitalism. Perez, the 2023-2024 San Diego Poet Laureate, employs a critical and improvisatory assemblage of lyric and litany, narrative and distillation, fragment and refrain to map city, solidarity and history. At once playful and tenacious, I ask about what falls away pays careful witness to working-class uncles, aunties, cousins and youth in rhythm with the anti-colonial wisdom of writers such as Neferti X. M. Tadiar and Aime Cesaire, remixing sorrow with a deep love and knowledge for everyday people.