Out of This World: Poems

Out of This World is an homage, a memoir, of the Spain Joe Somoza left behind as a child. It’s a celebration of his new life in this country with his wife Jill and their three children. The book opens with some lines from an Asturian folk song, ＂the loves that you had / at the seashore, / the loves that you had / you can never forget,＂ forming a motif for the deceptively simple poems about a man’s life time of loves. It’s his world we enter, seeing, hearing as if through an open window, carried away from our own world by his ironic, humorous voice.

＂The poems here ring, they are full of guileless humor and honest wisdom, and they remind you that even the most mundane parts of our lives can be poetry. “In the simple things, he manages to challenge the complexities of life, calling upon his control of words to cull forth a moment of intense beauty.＂ —Luis J. Rodriguez