Again for the First Time

Overview

Originally published in 1984 to great acclaim, including being awarded the Texas Institute of Letters Poetry Prize, this stirring collection of poems pairs and often plays against the mythologies of the author’s mixed Greek and Mexican heritage. A strong work of feminism, the pieces blend historical characters with contemporary settings and address issues that include San Antonio street life, racism, mass killings, and foreign wars.

Reviews

“It is impossible to say too much about this book by Rosemary Catacalos. There are poems in her collection that will astound, and not merely because they manipulate myth and reality so artfully but because they are spoken with the strength of a person who has learned to lament and give thanks at once, to keep ‘doing and undoing the whole cloth’ even as her ‘fingers bleed all over the loom.’”  —Cedar Rock on first edition

“The painstaking craft involved here is a sort of poetic alchemy, transmuting the base elements of life—thought, sorrow, joy—into a living thing which reaches deep into our consciousness and embeds itself there.”  —Texas Observer on first edition

“For precise balance in tone and form, and for surprising resonance throughout, Again for the First Time is a superb book of poems.”  —Texas Monthly on first edition

"Again for the First Time weaves the classic mythology of Catacalos’ Greek heritage into the daily resonances of her Mexican ancestry.... The book’s second part unpacks the dangerous luggage of heartbreak, yet her mythological narrators erase any sentimentality. [...] The lyrics dance and sing, but often bleed." —Roberto Bonazzi, San Antonio Express-News

Author Biography

Rosemary Catacalos is an award-winning poet and the author of As Long as It Takes. She is a former creative writing fellow at Stanford University and the executive director at Gemini Ink, a literary arts center. She was appointed the Texas poet laureate for 2013–2014. She lives in San Antonio.