Poetry. Latino/Latina Studies. MAHCIC is part celebration, part lament, part conclusion, part beginning--bilingual sound bombing taken straight from the love of a father for his son and a poet for his people. A controlled lyricism drives the collection through movements of political awareness and spiritual awakening while swaying to the rhythms of hip hop, jazz and ceremonia. Engaged with the world and connected intimately with the hope that emerges from pain these verses draw you in then send you off to action. "Tomas Riley's poems are the necessary documents we must carry to insure the safe crossing, the guide by the hand, the finger to the lip, poetry becomes a paint by numbers game of language, truth and funk. His gaze takes us across streets as he crosses himself at the corner of 24th and la Misión, more like the intersection of revolucion and eternidad. This first collection of poems takes pen to pavement, so do listen closely to the familiar street beating like a thousand sacred heart

Tom Thompson is a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. His first book, Live Feed, received a Greenwall Grant from the Academy of American Poets.