Books, Review
Speculative Poetry to Save America and the Earth
Book Review: Mexicans on the Moon by Pedro Iniguez
Pedro Iniguez is a Mexican-American horror and science fiction writer from Los Angeles, California. A Rhysling Award finalist, he has led writing workshops and has spoken at various colleges. Iniguez has been published in several venues, including: A Night of Screams: Latino Horror Stories, Worlds of Possibility, Nightmare Magazine, Star*Line, and Eye to the Telescope. His debut poetry book, Mexicans on the Moon: Speculative Poetry from a Possible Future, is a collection of fifty politically charged science fiction poems divided into four sections: Earth, Frontiers, Futures, and Aftermath.
Iniguez has incorporated several speculative subgenres into Mexicans on the Moon, the most prominent being science fiction, Mexican folklore, and magical realism. In this collection, he uses both science fiction and cultural poetics to highlight social and ecological situations. Utilizing his poetry, Iniguez critiques modern technology, fracking, and humanity as a whole. The opening poem, “America as an Atomic Pie,” sets a striking tone for the collection and paves the way for readers to experience the author’s anarchy against social constructs and expectations.
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Although science fiction, the poet’s identity is amplified in each poem. In poems like “Forever Elusive,” Iniguez uses speculative language to paint a vivid picture of what it’s like to exist as a minority in America:
The refugees recalled
memories from historic tomes;
conquerors, steel-plated rovers,
killing and pilfering the land.
Colonizers wiping bloody
boots on welcome mats
made of good will
and fertile soil.
Iniguez does not shy away from particularly difficult topics, such as deportation and violence. In some ways, the author’s distinct poetic voice could help readers digest these themes, albeit heavy nonetheless. He applies the science fiction poetic genre to the art of protest and highlights current real-life social crises like immigration, climate change, and gun violence. For example, the poem “The Epidemic of Shrink-Ray-Gun Violence Plaguing Our Schools Must End” begins:
Their atoms dust the floors
of every school in the country;
those frightened children
we can no longer console.
Their cries have faded
into inaudible wavelengths
inside a quantum world where
hugs and spacetime both cease to exist.
While some poems in Mexicans on the Moon could be labeled as dystopian, it almost seems like instead, Iniguez has initiated a warning for his audience of what could be to come if America keeps embracing problematic behavior, such as destruction, capitalist greed, and disregarding the effects of global warming. In his poem “Option One,” the author attempts to pave the way to a better world:
The solution to mankind’s pollution issues
could be mitigated two ways;
Option One: through mass purging, they could fell
the swell of their littering ranks;
or Option Two: their ecological footprint
could be radically reduced.
The second option was chosen
and the nanites were produced.
The speculative tones in this collection will allow readers to distance themselves from these controversial issues, while still being affected by the parallels between Iniguez’s speculative fictional world and the reality we live in.
While the majority of poems in Mexicans on the Moon seem to belong together, there is just one scifaiku, which does feel very out of place in a collection of all free-verse poems:
the border wall shrinks
for immigrants on jet packs
as blue skies expand.
Although written on the collection’s theme, this poem lacks the correct craft tools, such as cut and juxtaposition, to be considered a true scifaiku. Scifaiku (and haiku) should never be a sentence, but contain two separate parts, usually a fragment that contains a concrete image and a phrase. There are variations on this tool, such as image/moment and location/moment, but the above three-line poem contains none of these tools. Also, while scifaiku can contain punctuation, like an ellipsis or em/en dash, periods are never used. Despite this one exception, every other poem in Mexicans on the Moon enhances one another, cultivating a powerful and dynamic collection overall.
Although short, the poems in Mexicans on the Moon are dense and fill several gaps in the genre of contemporary speculative poetry. Iniguez effortlessly manipulates language, and his use of poetic devices is fresh and enticing. Whether you like traditional science fiction verses, or gravitate towards more experimental and forward-moving techniques, this collection will keep readers holding their breath and wishing and waiting for a better future. Mexicans on the Moon isn’t just topical and relevant; it’s a necessary and important collection. Iniguez writes the kind of poetry we need to save America, and Earth as a whole.
Interstellar Flight Magazine publishes essays on what’s new in the world of speculative genres. In the words of Ursula K. Le Guin, we need “writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope.” Visit our Patreon to join our fan community on Discord. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram
