Expat Poems

This collection consists of expatriate poems selected from five of Robert Rahula’s best known books of poetry written during his years living in Europe, Mexico, and Central America. The word expatriate derives from the French word expatrier (and originally from the Latin expatriatus) meaning to banish, and evokes a feeling of being forced out of one’s homeland… assuming one ever felt at home to start with. These are the poems of the wanderer, the outcast, the immigrant, the pilgrim, the disenfranchised, the drifter, the wayfarer, and the nomad. Written in the “portilla” style of popular Spanish poetry, these existential poems deal with bisexuality, separateness, politics, the expatriate life, aging and death. They are unapologetically polyamorous and realpolitik, occasionally dark, but never despairing. They are emblematic of the expatriate experience everywhere.