|
|
 |
|
| News: | 31 Mar. 2026 |
Curated by Clare MacQueen
Preview of New Book from MacQ
I’m so pleased to announce the forthcoming publication of this full-length collection by L.A. poet Jonathan Yungkans. Borrowed from Heaven features poems, prose, and photographs selected by yours truly in collaboration with the author, from his works produced during 2012-2025.
Cover image Rincon Beach © 2014 by Jonathan Yungkans. All rights reserved.
Scheduled for release in mid-May 2026, Borrowed from Heaven (176 pages) will be available from a range of booksellers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop.org in the US; Booktopia in Australia; Indigo in Canada; Bookswagon in Central Delhi, India; Waterstones in the UK; and numerous others worldwide.
An Excerpt:
cross
diagnosis the position of the Christ’s head
—Adrian Bouter1
cold rolls its marbles between floorboards and feet
which shuffle
toward an assembly-line crucifixion
past Siqueiros’s crucifixion mural on Olvera Street2
in the City of the Angels
reduced to the whitewash
that Anglo sanctimony insists is Lamb’s blood
pure as the obelisk’s white in Manzanar cemetery
the site surrounded by blue peaks
desert brown
while Siqueiros’s eagle watches from its perch atop
the native’s cross
scandalizing the quaint heritage
evoked and romanticized for tourists and feet move
as they shuffle toward an assembly-line crucifixion
what’s left
to sing but my country hates for thee
sweet land of cruelty while boards and knees groan
and Christ weeps blood
which drips down a mirror
whose silver plate behind its glass is greyish skin
while my fourth-grade teacher’s black eyes stare
Christ in and around me the hope of glory
as she
tells the class about when she was sent as a child
to Manzanar
toward an assembly-line crucifixion
as ICE’s helicopters hover and fly past day and night
* *
and Dad mentioned one night that he had met Trump
when Dad was shuttling
between LA and New York
and he told me “I thought he had some good ideas”
and I wonder
how good those ideas really were Dad
as I watch a video of ICE agents in helmets and camo
running after brown people fleeing for their lives
as they swarm a car wash down the street
agents
cradling assault rifles not aiming or shooting them
like they did Renée Good
when she pulled away
guilty of nothing more than writing poetry
but you never did get a handle on writing poetry
did you Dad
with me or anyone else so maybe
it was a crime and she was a white girl driving
as Siqueiros’s eagle
keens over and over loud
sounding a cross between a cheer and a scream
—After David Alfaro Siqueiros3
—Stanzas 1-4, which appear above the asterisks, were first published as the poem “via crucis” in Synkroniciti (Vol. 7, No. 4, Patterns, Fall 2025).4
- The monoku by Adrian Bouter was first published in Modern Haiku, and is reprinted with the poet’s kind permission from his collection Dew of Light (Winchester, Virginia: Red Moon Press, 2024).
- Olvera Street (Calle Olvera), located in downtown Los Angeles near Union Station, is a historic Mexican marketplace established in the 1930s. The pedestrian-only, tree-shaded, brick-lined street is part of El Pueblo de Los Ángeles Historical Monument and attracts millions of visitors annually.
- In 1932, Mexican Muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974) created the fresco mural (18x82 feet) América Tropical: Oprimida y Destrozada por los Imperialismos (Tropical America: Oppressed and Destroyed by Imperialism), which became one of the most controversial artworks in Los Angeles history. For details, see “Revolutionary Mural To Return To L.A. After 80 Years” by Mandalit del Barco on NPR’s Morning Edition (26 October 2010); transcript and photographs are available at:
https://www.npr.org/2010/10/26/130519329/revolutionary-mural-to-return-to-l-a-after-80-years
Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco, and Diego Rivera were considered the leaders of Mexican Muralism, a movement that began in the early 1920s when the government in Mexico “commissioned artists to make art that would educate the mostly illiterate population about the country’s history and present a powerful vision of its future” (MoMA):
https://www.moma.org/collection/terms/mexican-muralism
Links confirmed in March 2026. - “via crucis” was written before the ongoing protests in response to ICE’s “Operation Metro Surge” that began in Minneapolis, Minnesota in December 2025, and before the fatal shooting of Renée Nicole Good on 7 January 2026. Because the poem then seemed incomplete, Yungkans expanded it by three stanzas and revised the title to “cross”.
| Copyright © 2019-2026 by MacQueen’s Quinterly and by those whose works appear here. | |
| Logo and website designed and built by Clare MacQueen; copyrighted © 2019-2026. | |
|
Data collection, storage, assimilation, or interpretation of this publication, in whole or in part, for the purpose of AI training are expressly forbidden, no exceptions. |
At MacQ, we take your privacy seriously. We do not collect, sell, rent, or exchange your name and email address, or any other information about you, to third parties for marketing purposes. When you contact us, we will use your name and email address only in order to respond to your questions, comments, etc.