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The unsettled border between absence and presence haunts this stunning collection, in which poet laureate Steven Espada Dawson contemplates belonging, identity, family, and grief in poems about his own half-immigrant Mexican American family: his dying mother who raised him, his addict brother who has been missing for more than a decade, and his absent father. Chronicled in four parts, shifting restlessly between childhood memories, the sudden disappearance of his brother, and the inevitable loss of his ailing mother, Late to the Search Party explores what it means to be a family of one—to be orphaned, whether by fate or by circumstance. In language that is both grounded and ethereal, Dawson tallies the losses and looks at what remains: the frustration and anger, the bewilderment and sadness—and the affection and humor that makes itself felt in spite of everything. A vivid and thoughtful meditation on love and loss, Late to the Search Party is an ode to the families that inspire and confound us all.","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9781668081563","publication_date":"20250506","publisher":"Scribner","slug":"late-to-the-search-party","subtitle":"Poems","title":"Late to the Search Party"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"POE005070","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Hispanic American Poetry","score":0.8111,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"POE023050","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Family Poems","score":0.7931,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"POE023010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Poetry About Death","score":0.7875,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"POE005070","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Hispanic American Poetry","score":0.8111,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"POE023050","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Family Poems","score":0.7931,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"POE023010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Poetry About Death","score":0.7875,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"POE005010","confidence_band":"high","label":"American Poetry","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"POE005070","confidence_band":"high","label":"Hispanic American Poetry","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"POE023010","confidence_band":"high","label":"Poetry About Death","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"Hispanic American Poetry","score":0.8111,"slug":"hispanic-american-poetry"},{"label":"Family Poems","score":0.7931,"slug":"family-poems"},{"label":"Poetry About Death","score":0.7875,"slug":"poetry-about-death"}],"reader_fit":["Readers drawn to poetry about family, addiction, and loss","Good for readers interested in poems of Mexican American family, identity, and grief"],"related_lists":[],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Oliver De La Paz"],"book_id":"9781324095170","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781324095170.jpg?v=49a2750d8244d2e9","score":0.708,"title":"The Diaspora Sonnets","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781324095170"},{"authors":["Marcelo Hernandez Castillo","Janine Joseph","Esther Lin","& 0 more"],"book_id":"9780063224346","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780063224346.jpg?v=6d4eb589498a5735","score":0.7041,"title":"Here to Stay","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780063224346"},{"authors":["Eduardo C. 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