Thunderbirds and Sunflowers

Former Albuquerque poet laureate (2024–2026) Damien Flores paints an intimate portrait of family, home, and the hard work of living.

Written in the Nuevomexicano dialect, Thunderbirds and Sunflowers is broken into two “songs” that comprise a book-length epic poem exploring several decades of Damien Flores’s family history. At the center of these intimate family relationships is the Albuquerque Old Town home where Flores was raised by his grandparents since he was ten days old. Flores carefully stacks all of the moments, large and small, that make up a family in the same way that he and his grandmother repaired the home brick by adobe brick after a drunk driver slammed into the building. As they work side-by-side, she tells him the story of how she defied the gender roles of her era and made the home her own. As the foundations of his grandmother’s memory crumble from dementia, Flores details the experience of caring for her during her final decade with tenderness and honesty.

Featuring an introduction by Albuquerque-born, Los Angeles–based poet Olivia Gatwood, as well as twenty-four photographs from the family’s collection, this intimate portrait of one family and the home that sheltered them celebrates querencia and reminds readers how spaces and people craft our understanding of self and our place in the world.