Structured around a Spanish nursery rhyme, Grief for the Green That Was by Jacob Shores-Argüello finds solace in the prospect of citizenship for a more-than-human world. This possibility is approached through perspectival shifts and innovative forms—including footnoted poems, hybrid fiction, and an experimental choose-your-own-adventure sequence—that overturn lyric and storytelling conventions.

Moving tenderly across memory, continents, and literary forms, Shores-Argüello’s tightly woven cross-genre collection evolves a private family bereavement into an exploration of collective ecological grief. Following the death of his mother, the speaker navigates between his Costa Rican heritage and his Oklahoma upbringing, eventually arriving at something like healing on the banks of New Zealand’s Whanganui River—the first river in the world granted legal personhood.

This collection is part of the Camino del Sol series established in 1994 by writer and poet Ray Gonzalez.

Grief for the Green That Was is available for purchase through The University of Arizona Press (UA Press), the premier publisher of academic, regional, and literary works in the state of Arizona. UA Press disseminates ideas and knowledge of lasting value that enrich understanding, inspire curiosity, and enlighten readers; and advances the University of Arizona mission by connecting scholarship and creative expression to readers worldwide.