Works by
Rigoberto Gonzalez
(Poet, Writer)

Books

• Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa (2006)
  Heartbreaking, poetic, and intensely personal, Butterfly Boy is a unique coming out and coming-of-age story of a first-generation Chicano who trades one life for another, only to discover that history and memory are not exchangeable or forgettable. 
  
  Growing up among poor migrant Mexican farmworkers, Rigoberto González also faces the pressure of coming-of-age as a gay man in a culture that prizes machismo. Losing his mother when he is twelve, González must then confront his father’s abandonment and an abiding sense of cultural estrangement, both from his adopted home in the United States and from a Mexican birthright. His only sense of connection gets forged in a violent relationship with an older man. By finding his calling as a writer, and by revisiting the relationship with his father during a trip to Mexico, González finally claims his identity at the intersection of race, class, and sexuality. The result is a leap of faith that every reader who ever felt like an outsider will immediately recognize.

• Other Fugitives And Other Strangers (2006) -- Finalist, 2006 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Men's Poetry
  Other Fugitives and Other Strangers is a testimony of sexuality in times of violence. This journey into the intimate language of the male body is burdened with danger and desire and expressed through a dark eroticism reminiscent of García Lorca and Cavafy. These provocative and brutally honest poems give voice to both sides of abusive relationships, dismissing easy assumptions about victimhood and shattering the taboo of silence from within the political arena of love between men. Rigoberto González is the author of So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water until It Breaks, a selection of the National Poetry Series. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and of numerous international artist residencies, González has also written two picture books, a novel, and two works of nonfiction, including the memoir Butterfly Boy.

• Antonio's Card / La Tarjeta de Antonio (2005) with Cecilia Concepcion Alvarez, Illustrator -- Finalist 2005 Lambda Literary Award for Children/Young Adult
  Antonio loves words, because words have the power to express feelings like love, pride, or hurt. Mother's Day is coming soon, and Antonio searches for the words to express his love for his mother and her partner, Leslie. But he's not sure what to do when his classmates make fun of Leslie, an artist, who towers over everyone and wears paint-splattered overalls. As Mother's Day approaches, Antonio must choose whether — or how — to express his connection to both of the special women in his life. Rigoberto González's bilingual story resonates with all children who have been faced with speaking up for themselves or for the people they love. Cecilia Concepción Álvarez's paintings bring the tale to life in tender, richly hued detail.

• Crossing Vines (2003)
  In the grim reality of Southern California's grape fields, even the sun is a dark spot. For the migrant grape pickers in Crossing Vines, Rigoberto González's novel that spans a single workday, the sun is a constant, malevolent force. The characters endure back-breaking, monotonous work as they succumb to the whims of their corrupt bosses. Each minute the sun rises higher in the sky is an eternity. The textures, smells, sights, and emotions of their daily existences engulf the lives of the Mexican laborers. Scarce drinking water, sweltering heat, splintered fingers, contempt for the job, and violence toward one another compose their unflinchingly dark world. In González's brutally honest story, the characters are compelled forward mercilessly by the rising crisis that envelops their interconnected stories. This uncompromisingly thought-provoking tale gives names and faces to the anonymous agricultural laborers, whose lives are like the tangled vines of the fruits of their labor. Not since Tómas Rivera's . . . And the Earth Did Not Devour Him has a novel converged on the lives of migrant workers so profoundly. Like Rivera, González employs nostalgia for Mexican tradition as he looks at the family feuds, economic injustices, and racism prevalent in the migrant worker experience.

• Soledad Sigh-Sighs / Soledad suspiros (2003) with Rosa Ibarra, Illustrator
  Inspired by the author’s two-year tenure as a creative writing teacher with the Coalition for Hispanic Family Services After School Arts and Literacy Education Program, this bilingual picture book is set in Brooklyn, features Puerto Rican characters and deals with the latch-key kid phenomenon.

• Skins Preserve Us (1999)
  This limited edition chapbook (only 200 copies printed) includes poetry from the author’s award-winning book, So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water Until It Breaks, and from his second poetry manuscript, Other Fugitives and Other Strangers.  (Contact author for purchase)

• So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water Until It Breaks (1999)
  The poems in this book are an homage to Michoacán, México, the author’s homeland, and to life on the international border. It was a 1998 National Poetry Series selection, judged by National Book Award-winning poet, Ai.

• Wonderlands: Good Gay Travel Writing (2004)
  Living up to its title, Wonderlands comes fueled by wanderlust and features every kind of wonderland. In fact, the collection's contributors--a mix of established gay writers and the best of the new generation--don't settle for the obvious. Focusing on the sheer visceral thrill of travel, the adventure of it, they set out all over the world and always find something unexpected: love, passion, history, themselves. 
  
  The result is an anthology of dynamic writing that will motivate readers to book their next flight, or at least get them dreaming of other places. And the places are legion. Mack Friedman sets off into the deceptively butch wilds of Alaska. Robert Tewdwr Moss tracks through the back roads of Syria and his own version of Arabian Nights. Colm Tóibín discovers a Spanish Brigadoon and Edward Field drinks tea with Paul Bowles. For Wayne Koestenbaum Vienna is both a city of high low culture, and for Philip Gambone Asia becomes a place of second chances. Raphael Kadushin settles into the ethereal sun of a Dutch spring, Michael Lowenthal remembers a jarring encounter in the Scottish Highlands, and Tim Miller tallies the 1001 beds he has slept in all over the world. And Edmund White, in a classic of elegiac travel writing, recounts his harrowing drive through the Sahara with a man he loved.
  
  Contributors: Alistair McCartney, Boyer Rickel, Brian Bouldrey, Bruce Shenitz, Colm Tóibín, David Masello, Edmund White, Edward Field, J.S. Marcus, Mack Friedman, Matthew Link, Michael Lowenthal, Mitch Cullin, Philip Gambone, Raphael Kadushin, Rigoberto Gonzalez, Robert Tewdwr Moss, Wayne Koestenbaum, and Tim Miller.