Hallelujah Anyhow

A debut collection of lovingly attentive poems about life in kinship with the land and cohabitants in little known corners of Mexico.

Rural Mexico is practically a co-author of Hallelujah Anyhow, a debut collection that is quietly observant and raw, in which gritty reality lives side by side with delights and transcendence. López Smith pulls on the threads that bind everyone and everything together, whether it be migrants on the borderlands, the majestic wilds or her own small farm. This poetic offering sees the sacred and relational in everything—with sleeves rolled up and dirt under the fingernails—and embraces a tender caregiving toward the land, the creatures, children and community. With gratitude in one hand and a broken heart in the other, these poems are suffused with daily miracles and loving attention to both the horror and the grace of being alive.