Furious Dusk

"David Campos writes tenderly and with compassion about fathers, sons, and the way we become men. He writes with an original voice and fire about race, identity, and nation. He writes lyrics that skirt tightropes of impossible, beautiful contradictions. David is a Fresno poet, an American poet, a Chicano poet, and more. This is an extraordinary book of grace, I cannot recommend it highly enough." -Chris Abani, author of Sanctificum and Hands Washing Water

"A monster debut collection that refuses to go unnoticed, the same way one cannot divert their eyes from an anatomical dissection. In five deftly crafted sections, we are given an unflinching view of the poet's own innards; from wrestling with eating disorders to father-son relations, body image, and marriage, the tendons and ligaments of a life are exposed, and the red muscle of reality is left jutting toward you, the reader. Campos's poetry is a physical experience, a glimmering mirror that forces us to call out our own dark secrets, to be accountable and 'take comfort that we're alive as animals.' From the same literary stomping grounds and fertile groves that first produced the fearless and prophetic Andres Montoya himself-emerges this new and necessary breed of luminary voice." -Tim Z. Hernandez, author of Manana Means Heaven

"This is a fearless poetics-no heroes, no myth-making, no jazzy lingo games. David Campos is intent on one inner phrase: 'I will become the fire.' I applaud David's first book. It is relentless in wrestling the darkness, reminiscent in some ways of Delmore Schwartz, Joan Larkin, and Victor Martinez. A tour de force, a rare heart of raw light." -Juan Felipe Herrera, California Poet Laureate

"The Fresno City College teacher received the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize for 2014 for his collection of poetry, Furious Dusk. Contest judge Rhina P. Espaillat describes Campos' winning collection as 'a work whose five parts trace a son's efforts - only partially successful-to fulfill his father's expectations and-perhaps even more difficult-understand those expectations enough to forgive them.'" -Fresno Bee

"Furious Dusk is an accessible, narrative collection of confessional poems. David Campos is unflinchingly observant of his subjects-highlighting the dark, uncomfortable elements with a commendable specificity. . . . A collection centering on issues of masculinity, machismo, family, cultural expectations, and feelings of inadequacy, Furious Dusk follows the persona's reflective journey upon learning of his father's impending death. . . . [T]his collection shows ambition." -Kenyon Review

"Just as Campos felt the need to kill the image that he had of his father as a child to craft his own version of manhood, the pieces dealing with the couple's struggles with fertility are 'exaggerated and dramatized' in a way that dramatizes the emotional toll that such a crisis takes on the relationship. In that way, Campos' work speaks to a larger truth." -South Bend Tribune