In his biting first full‐length collection in English, Tijuana poet
Roberto Castillo Udiarte commiserates with Zona Norte streetwalkers,
embodies the desert lizard, and maps a life lived in the dimness of the
barroom -- as well as its incisive light. The poems in Smooth-Talking
Dog display the counterculture influence of a wide range of influences
on both sides of the border, from both the page and the rock concert
stage, as hilarious and tragic as they are deadly serious. Celebrating
Baja California's status outside the Mexican literary mainstream,
Smooth-Talking Dog proves just how permeable the aesthetic border
between the U.S. and Mexico really is.