Additional information
by Harold J. Recinos (Author)
Recinos fell in love with poetry growing up on the streets, after being abandoned by immigrant Latino parents. Finding shelter in public libraries, Recinos discovered that poetry was a way to make sense of living on the streets in the pitiable condition of teen homelessness and heroin addiction. After being unofficially adopted at the age of sixteen into a white American family from Ohio that moved to New York, he began a drug-free life, went to college, and eventually earned a PhD in cultural anthropology with honors from The American University in Washington, DC. Breathing Space is a poetry collection that raises to the level of consciousness the beauty and obstinate spirit of workers, mothers, grandmothers, brothers, sisters, revolutionaries, undocumented immigrants, and those considered unworthy of love. Recinos' poetry celebrates and chastises the inner workings of the American Dream and moves readers to develop a compassionate awareness for the hopes, struggles, and suffering of the most vulnerable members of society. Recinos' poetry not only expresses outrage and despair in the face of unjust suffering in the world, but the poems uniquely invite readers to see the beauty of people at the edges of society.
Author Biography
Harold J. Recinos is Professor of Church and Society at the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. Among his recent publications are Harold J. Recinos, ed. Wading Through Many Voices: Toward a Theology of Public Conversation (Roman and Littlefield, 2011); Voices on the Corner (Wipf and Stock, 2015); Crossing Bridges (Floricanto Press, 2016); Other Seasons (Wipf and Stock, 2017); and Word Simple (Wipf and Stock, 2017). Recinos completed the Doctor of Philosophy with honors in cultural anthropology in 1993 from the American University in Washington, DC.
