Gold That Frames The Mirror – Brandon Melendez

Write Bloody Publishing | April 1, 2019 | Paperback

​In this debut collection, Gold That Frames the Mirror, Melendez carefully weaves together a beautiful and raw kaleidoscope of narratives that explore his family, his heritage, cultural trauma, mental illness, and music. The collection perfectly encapsulates what it means to grow up and move through this complicated world.

​Melendez bares his heart and soul on every single page creating an emotional vortex that will suck readers in. But it’s the urgency coursing through these poems that will keep them reading on and on until they–unfortunately–reach the end.

The collection is divided into sections; each one presenting a new level, a new phase of life–Melendez’s life. Throughout each of these sections the poems return to images, relationships, and internalized conflicts that drip with mixture of grief and joy. But as the sections progress an underlying current of gratitude begins to swell. Hitting home that the only way to reach a space of true appreciate for home and our community is by reflecting on the different phases of life and really looking at the person staring back at us in the mirror.

Truly, the only thing better than this debut collection is knowing that Melendez is only getting started.