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Ten Toes in the Earth
Paperback
Publisher Price: $15.00
Publisher: El Martillo Press
Published: Mar 31 2026
Pages: 160
Weight: 0.49
Height: 0.34 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Imagining the ideal barrio means imagining a better world for everyone in Donato Martinez's new book of poems, Ten Toes in the Earth. The overtime that this poeta: full-time teacher and father, puts in brings the barrio together to share the happiness of the pachanga or the carne asada. Work is not work if you love what you do. Donato loves his gente. Even their heartbreak is celebrated by imagining a Mexican Statue of Liberty where all the Mexicans can lay their pain down and celebrate their hard-earned struggle. Heaven is full of mangos and compas selling tacos on the side of freeway - but all the compas live in mansions. You have to imagine it first to create and realize it. And Donato's imagination is free and firme like a Sunday cruise.
-Paul S. Flores, HBO Def Poet, author of We Still Be: Poems and Performances, 2024 American Book Award winner
Resurrected Tupac, Vicks VapoRub and sweet mangos are a few of the many saviors Martinez calls forth to rescue a grief-stricken world. These poems demonstrate how imagination becomes a vehicle for hope without borders. The people living in this collection include truck-driving tÃas, ghost children, landscaping fathers, and women who buy themselves flowers. They are not merely survivors, but celebrated working-class heroes. These poems are constantly desiring, calling for change, and wanting justice for so many loved ones.
-Karla Cordero, author of How to Pull Apart the Earth
You will see your family in these poems, your culture, your crazy tias, the hardened men now crying, you will taste the mango dripping, see the tortillas de harina rising on the comal. Professor Donato Martinez - veterano professor of English literature and master storyteller - is a Chicano bard for these turbulent times. There is an aching in each line. A longing to return to the simplicity of childhood and the pulsing adventures of youth. These poems are ode to our barrios, our familias, our cultura, la raza. Read these poems out loud, around fires, in classrooms, and even in the halls of Congress. Orale! Atención! Make way for the Chicano Bard, Donato Martinez! In Ten Toes in the Earth, the work is unyielding - while the corazón is tender and vulnerable. Our hardworking familias, our migrant siblings, and aging elders are the true heroes of these poems. These poems will ground you.
-Brenda Vaca, author of Riot of Roses and publisher of Riot of Roses Publishing House
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