Alan Pelaez Lopez

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Alan Pelaez Lopez (?-present) is an Afro-Indigenous poet and artist from Oaxaca, Mexico. Their work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Award, and has been published in POETRY Magazine, Everyday Feminism, Rewire News, and Splinter News among others. Currently, Pelaez Lopez is pursuing a Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley. They are also the co-founder of the Arts and Humanities Initiative, an interdisciplinary think tank at UC Berkeley. Source

Zapotec Crossers (or, Haiku I Write Post-PTSD Nightmares)

i

 

Waves smack the body,

Nayeli, seven, drowning.

Spring: crossing season.

 

 

 

ii

 

Summer indicates

the migration will be “safe.”

Yej Susen, three, sprints.

 

 

 

iii

 

Inda Jani, one,

knows to crawl under the fence — 

she was trained all fall.

 

 

 

iv

 

At four ai-em, Yao,

twelve, is sewn inside car seat;

winter will protect.

 

 

 

v

 

Itzel, five, plays dead.

Border patrol agents see

her body — they leave.

Published:

2018

Length:

Shorty

Literary Movements:

Contemporary

Anthology Years:

2020

Themes:

Intersectionality & Culture

Literary Devices:

Alliteration

the repetition of the same letter or sound at the beginning of words appearing in succession

Caesura

a break between words within a metrical foot