Mike Soto Grave is Given Supper

Told in a series of interlinked poems, Soto’s striking debut collection follows two protagonists in an imaginary United States/Mexico border town, chronicling the state- and drug war-inflicted violence they must undergo. Through the troubled chronicle of their relationship and occult-influenced aura, the linked poems weave a narco-tinged “Acid Western” following the narrative arc of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s classic cult film, El Topo. A Grave is Given Supper builds a world that honors the complicated lives taking place in the borderland. Poems like "Sixty-eight were found without heads" reflect the fraught relationship between cartel violence, love, and personal responsibility, where Soto's protagonist asks: how can we "be / celebrating despite those bodies in black / plastic bags making their way”? Through tense verse that alternates between bleak political trauma and dystopic landscape, Soto’s debut collection shares a spectacular new voice narrating the finite tension and desire of lives on the US-Mexican border.
A Narco Acid Western told in interlinked poems, using themes from the ongoing drug war taking place in a fictional U.S./Mexico border town.