Plancha Press is an imprint of IR committed to highlighting the poetry and prose of Texan writers.
As of 2026, we are not currently accepting any unsolicited manuscripts.
If you are a reviewer, please email us at infrarrealistareview@gmail.com to request advanced reader copies.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Me fui en silencio is a work that gathers fragments of my memory, grief, and resilience that moves across all fronteras with me. It is written in the language of departure and regreso, silencio and survival. Migration is not only the movement of my body, it is the stories, and pain carried in secret, the grief that lives alongside hope.
These poems and stories refuse the “american dream,” that ugly capitalist sleepless nightmare that so many of us and our families get trapped in. They also speak to the complexity of home: Latin America, a land still ravaged by imperialism and missionaries who force their religions onto indigenous peoples.
My writings speak from the janitor closet, abuelita’s chanclas, the homes left behind and the uncertain ones ahead. They honor the voices that cannot and will not live this experience unseen and unheard; the immigrants that refuse to let others own our narrative through their grants, their news, their hate and ignorance.
To remain anonymous is itself a form of protection, but also a statement: that the experiences of migration cannot be contained in one single body, name, or author. These words are both personal and collective, an offering for my community that is forced to grieve silently.
This chapbook is an invitation to listen closely to the echoes of displacement, to the strength hidden in survival, to the possibility of belonging wherever our stories are carried, to the echoes of self deportation.
“The poems in Jorge Renaud’s exceptional collection are direct, elegant, and plain-spoken. They rally us with his discerning poet’s pen against the cruelty of massive incarceration. Twenty-seven years of imprisonment opened his poet’s ear and eye to depict loss, love, and liberation unapologetically. Renaud’s poems should be read time and again.”
–Teresa Palomo Acosta, author of Las Tejanas: 300 Years of History
“The The Restlessness of Bound Wrists is an urgent testimony of compassion and transformation from a poet who knows that to tell the truth…Renaud’s poetic voice never falters, never hesitates, ringing loud and clear…My heart broke, over and over again…”
–ire’ne lara silva, 2023 Texas Poet Laureate
Jorge Renaud’s The Restlessness of Bound Wrists is a meditation and high-voltage letter of resistance against the Texan carceral system. It’s a prayer of recognition and understanding to those touched by addiction. The speaker’s voice is a quiet lull reaching for those who dare to look at what’s happening beyond walls and not by indicting, or teaching them, but simply by levitating them off the page with directness into the state of ephemeral dreaming, the liminal birthed from loss of control. We’re captivated by Renaud’s confessional style, and honey and bourbon language. Renaud writes for the mothers, brothers and sisters who are freedom fighters through everyday acts while also nodding to resistance giants like raúlrsalinas and Assata Shakur.
Since his last release from prison in 2008 Jorge Renaud has been a policy analyst and community organizer at various social justice organizations, among them the Texas Center for Justice and Equity, Grassroots Leadership, the Prison Policy Initiative, and Latino Justice PRLDEF. Jorge was honored to be selected as the 2020 Poet in Residence by the Civil Rights Corps and the 2021 Writer in Residence at the Texas After Violence Project. He is the proud father of Katie, a woman who enchants and astonishes and befuddles him in equal measure. Jorge believes poetry should be left to younger spirits yet was somehow persuaded to publish a book by the vatas lorcas at Infrarrealista Review. The Restlessness of Bound Wrists is forthcoming in 2025 with Plancha Press. He is guided by one maxim–No human is disposable.
Watch a PBS Brief but Spectacular segment featuring Jorge Renaud here.
“And I was taught not to use certain words in poems / but sometimes I act undisciplined to feel better” Amber states in the opening poem of Peppermint. Through cutting matter-of-fact language, Peppermint is a reel of personal lore: a childhood on a farm in Missouri, sights of San Marcos squirrels, queer kisses between games of Magic the Gathering, all interspersed with abstract recipes like a “Recipe for Finding a Body.” Peppermint sits with both the terrors and beauty of queer life—loving despite traumatic childhood memories, depression, and a tyrannical transphobic state.
Peppermint quite literally has cooling properties, bringing a refreshing approach to poetry. Isaac winks at the reader, asking questions like, “If I mention poppers will this poem exclude you?” She brings a levity to her poetry, a minty fresh approach that cuts through the heaviness with necessary humor.
References include but are not limited to: In Cold Blood, Alien, Goodfellas, poppers, kayfabe, Magic the Gathering, Prince, Goya, Steve McQueen, Taylor Swift t-shirts, Avril Lavigne, and Gregg Araki.
Amber Isaac is a queer trans writer from the Midwest. Her work appears in Prairie Schooner, Coachella Review, and Cimarron Review. They are the Reviews Editor at Infrarrealista Review.
“It’s a reason for celebration! A new book by our hero! Jacinto Jesús Cardona’s work goes straight to the soul, penetrates chatter, clarifies memory, air, hope and precious humanity.”
—NAOMI SHIHAB NYE, Everything Comes Next: Collected and New Poems, Cast Away: Poems for Our Time, The Tiny Journalist
“Amapolasong makes me want to have libro breath, breath made from reading, saying, and singing the jaunty, wry and wise Star-Spangled Spanglish captured by poeta, Jacinto Jesús Cardona. These pages are a warm and uplifting Chicano embrace offered by the unique and singular lexicon of this true poeta de la gente. Cardona delivers a lyrical memoir novella set as histories and testimonios essential to understand the region of South Texas, filled with characters like the Number One Small-Town Fry Cook, Don Anguiano, el mayor piscador, and the poet himself appearing in a number of poems, as a teenage bookish bato who struggles with baseball, but not with his khakis, his joyful curiosity, or his sparkling spinners. This is a book that opens the door the magical voice-world unique to the language of our bilingual people, and its hard truths are hard-won with so much tenderness for a people and so much music in its tenderness. Lleno de encantos, these poems will keep readers of all ages inspired and wondering what magical word-paquete will star-spangle-sparkle up the next line. This word-mundo is a creative festival of poems that forms an añil bath for anyone needing a thought-cleanse from too much of today’s muck and mugrero.”
—NATALIA TREVIÑO, VirginX
“Amapolasong is a juicy linguistic experience. Wondrous. These poems are succulent. They quench the reader’s soul in these terribly parched American times.”
—LORI MARIE CARLSON-HIJUELOS, Cool Salsa, A Path to the World: Becoming You
I remember riding my fenderless bike
to la panadería del pueblo
sometimes I would go alone
sometimes I would dream
I took abuelo by the hand
I remember pan dulce tasting even sweeter
after confessing my sins
at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church
nothing like dulcified bread
for crucified bones
I remember standing in front of the glass displays
telling el panadero I’ll take one of these
and one of those and one of these
unlike the cool pachuco who came in
asking for pan de polvo un regalo
y un hueso azucarado to go
I had not mastered the names of pan dulce
so imagine my thrill imagine the authority
in my chavalón bones when I returned
asking for dos huesos azucarados
two sugared bones to go
I remember pan dulce
la Virgen de Guadalupe
bordered by blue neon lights
and how the smell of canela
reminded me of abuelito’s piloncillo skin
JACINTO JESÚS CARDONA was born in Palacios, Texas, and grew up in Alice the Hub of South Texas. He lives with his family in San Antonio, Texas, and currently teaches English and creative writing at Incarnate Word High School.
