Before the Blue Hour
by Carlos Reyes

Description

Carlos Reyes’ 2026 collection, Before the Blue Hour, is a panoramic unfolding of recent lyrical and often revealing auto-biographical poems. Many of the pieces harken back to a bruising childhood, then carry us on through Reyes’ teens and later years and bring us right up to date with his perceptions of aging and survival in a chaotic and rapidly changing world. This collection is a daring and broad sampling of what Reyes is accomplishing at the onset of his tenth decade.

praise for Reyes’ work
Carlos Reyes has been writing and working on behalf of poetry for years, enriching the world with poems that attend to the less noticed things and people in the world in language that is both accessible and carefully honed.
―Lisa M. Steinman

Far scenes are brought in with a zoom lens, and the Reyes flavor of living and recollecting is laced gracefully through page after page of surprise and recognition blended into insight.
―William Stafford

Reyes is an observant, sympathetic traveler who inhabits the landscape with a radiant equanimity. His is the work of an accomplished artist whose language and curiosity illuminate the present moment and connect it to the elusive past. In his exploration of borders, empathy, and history, and in his engagement with mortality, including his own, Reyes encounters the world
with rare wonder.
―Michele Glazer