Books

José Alcántara pays deep attention to the “ordinary,” to the physical, especially to the natural world, in which attention is the truest love. And while each poem is a true lyric, a whole song in itself, the cumulative effect is greater, a quiet symphony of the senses and the spirit. - Cecila Woloch, Author of Tsigan: The Gypsy Poem.

The Bitten World: Poems

Excerpt
Violaceae
If we must have violence, then let it be the violence of violets, how they burst into spring, before most anything else –vanguard of the voluptuous –unraveling their petals, their leavesto attract whatever will love them.
If we must rant and rave, then let us do so as they do, inconspicuously, close to the ground, in all the wet places,until something with a stinger comes and mounts us, turning us inward,where we learn what it is to sweeten.
“Violaceae” first appeared in Rattle.
QUICK FACTS
Title: The Bitten World: PoemsPage Count: 96 pagesGenre: PoetryPublisher: Tebot BachPublication Date: January 15, 2022ISBN: 9781939678737Price: $17Available Formats: PaperbackWhere to Buy: Small Press Distribution

José A. Alcántara Biography

José A. Alcántara has worked as a bookseller, mailman, commercial fisherman, electrician, baker, carpenter, studio photographer, door-to-door salesman, and math teacher. He is the author of The Bitten World: Poems (Tebot Bach, 2021). His poetry has appeared, or is forthcoming, in American Life in Poetry, Poetry Daily, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, Bennington Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Spillway, and the
anthologies, 99 Poems for the 99%, and America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience. José is a former Fishtrap Fellow and his poems have been nominated for both the Pushcart Prizes and Best of the Net. His poem “Divorce” won the 2021 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor from Rattle. José lives in western Colorado and wherever he happens to pitch his tent. Author photos

Reviews

I love the clarity and directness of these poems, the precision of both vision and language here, where perception and imagination are inseparable, where a deep intelligence and cutting wit are met always, and always unexpectedly, by magic.
Cecilia Woloch, Author of Tsigan: The Gypsy Poem
The balance between love and indifference, faith and cynicism, self and other are revealed in images which range from the commonplace to the absurd. In these poems, we follow the poet out of the circle of light and into the blood of our final becoming: “To love the world is to be a small fish / swallowing a large one.”
Michael Simms, Founder of Autumn House Press
Jose A. Alcantara is a powerhouse of imagination and expression. The poet finds the absolute shining, spinning heart of every moment and reveals the wonder, truth, and humor within. After every poem, I find myself looking skyward just to savor the light.
Eric Paul Shaffer, author of A Million-Dollar Bill
You begin to suspect that magic hides everywhere,” writes Jose Alcantara, and in The Bitten World, he offers proof. Magic in the grubs, magic in the beaten rug, magic in the dirt beneath the fingernails. I love these poems, these intelligent, heart-twisting, gut-kicking, beauty-driven poems written by a poet who’s been “struck with the cold cudgel of grace.”
rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, author of Hush and Naked for Tea
To read The Bitten World is to be immersed in the world where we live and at the same time to see a vastness behind that world. Extraordinary.
Matt Daly, Author of Between Here and Home