Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive: Poems

The debut collection from a vibrant, streetwise voice: Winner of the 2002 Members' Choice Award from the Asian American Writers Workshop.

Patrick Rosal's poetry rings with the music of no-frills industrial towns of central New Jersey. Portraits of hip-hoppers and condemned men (whose misdeeds as boys forever shaped their futures) alternate with dynamic riffs on longing—sexual and filial—and on the poet's Filipino roots. Unpredictable and breathtaking as a sax solo, these poems are the indelible marks made by a world that has been simultaneously kept close and left behind.