The Concrete River

Rodriguez ( Poems Across the Pavement ) writes eloquently of ``a severed America,'' of Mexicans exiled to ``the armed camp called East Los Angeles,'' of laid-off laborers and evicted families--in short, of a populace locked out of privilege and prosperity. Turned away, they turn fury pk and desire inward--and implode. In the title poem, homeboys gather on the cement banks of the L.A. River to inhale aerosol fumes. Their ensuing visions transform ``an urban-spawned / Stream of muck'' into ``a flow of clear liquid / On a cloudless day''--yet end in near suffocation. However, Rodriguez's men and women are more often the victims of the anger of others--especially the police. A moving elegy, ``The Best of Us'' tells how a few words exchanged by a young Mexican and the police end in the man's murder. But while violence is always on the verge of eruption, beauty also blossoms in unusual places. As a couple dances in a dive, the poet notes ``how a hand opens slightly, / shaped like a seashell, / in the small / of a back.'' This poetry is of the barrio yet stubbornly refuses to be confined in it--Rodriguez's perceptive gaze and storyteller's gift transport his world across neighborhood boundaries. (June)