Book Nook - Blues

Franck de las Mercedes has released a new book, Blues. Spanning 1997 to 2026, this collection of selected poems reveals the gradual transformation of a young voice confronting loss, displacement, uncertainty, and desire into one tempered by experience, love, creativity, and renewal. His poetry really started in songwriting, and a lot of the poems in the book are song lyrics, trimmed, crafted, and condensed into rhymeless verse. Unlike his poems in Spanish, each poem here reveals just how much rock and roll influenced my voice and its cadence. Moving through music, visual art, and memory, the cover is also his design, inspired by iconic rock and heavy metal album covers.

Franck de las Mercedes is a Nicaraguan poet, artist, and photographer based in New York City. Born in Masaya, Nicaragua, and raised in Washington Heights, New York, his work explores memory, migration, identity, love, family, and resilience. He is the author of Primogénito his first poetry book in Spanish and his 2026 book in English titled "Blues," both compiling selected poems, 1997-2026. Best known internationally for his art projects and multidisciplinary artistic practice, de las Mercedes has spent nearly three decades creating work that examines memory, identity, family dynamics, societal issues, and the contradictions of contemporary life.