Description

This purchase includes pralines made by Jorge Renaud as a thank you gift.

The Restlessness of Bound Wrists is a high-voltage letter of resistance against the Texan carceral system. It’s a prayer of recognition 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. We’re captivated by Renaud’s confessional style, and honey and bourbon language. This book is for resistance giants like raúlrsalinas and Assata Shakur and for the mothers, brothers and sisters who freedom-fight through everyday acts.

Since his last release from prison in 2008, Jorge Antonio 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 measures.

“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