"Folsom Lockdown is that rare literary song that jars the heart, the memories, the pains, as well as what's good in all of us. Prison is not just that place far away where your loved ones may be--the razor wire structures have now reached into our homes, our thoughts, our feelings, our psyche. Somehow, we're all behind bars. And Melinda Palacio's poems are a welcome reprieve that dares to illustrate how poetry and art are the only real keys to all our liberations. This is a poet for our time, in hard times, when so many are doing time."

--Luis J. Rodriguez, author of "My Nature is Hunger" and other books, as well founder/editor of Tia Chucha Press

Melinda Palacio’s Folsom Lockdown is a harrowing, provocative, and surprisingly tender examination of violence and incarceration. Palacio wrestles with a father’s crimes, and in the process, discovers realms of identity and being that are rarely accessible. Violence may be able to shrivel the fruit on a tree, as it does in one of her poems, but it can also open up unexpected vistas on the human heart. Palacio teaches us that acts of violence may never be rationally explained, but they can be overcome. In these wonderful poems, integrity, honor and the inexplicable bonds of love triumph over brutality. As Palacio reminds us, “a promise to a thief, a liar, an attempted murderer / is still a promise.”

--Gary Young, Greenhouse Review Press