"Rey M. Rodríguez has written a love letter to all of us women, sisters, mothers. His is an important voice that needs to be heard. His words, full of poetry and heart, will touch your soul and make you feel less alone."
 
—Reyna Grande, author of The Distance Between Us, finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and Across a Hundred Mountains, winner of the American Book Award and the Premio Aztlán Literary Award
 
 
“A treatise in poetry about one of the most important stories of our time—the formation and work of Proyecto Pastoral in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. Violence, drugs, and death plagued these streets, which in the 1990s and into the 2000s were the most gang-inflicted in the country. But mothers stood up for healing, peace, for saving the children. Projects arose to help youth but also the unhoused and migrants. People in need. God’s work. Powerful figures like Father Greg Boyle met the call. Here Rey M. Rodríguez uses poems to carry their voices, stories, pains, and joys. In Spanish and English, in any language, it’s a work of art, a work of action.”
 
—Luis J. Rodríguez, former Los Angeles Poet Laureate, author of Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A.” and It Calls You Back: An Odyssey through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing
 
 
"Written for the community and the love found within, Rodríguez's collection is a moving tribute to the women of Boyle Heights. With keen tenderness, Rodriguez's ability to share the stories about the women, mothers and grandmothers of his community, in a place that provides both sanctuary and loss, with the ceaseless nature of love is both inspiring and impressive. Rodriguez's words reveal the light found within."
 
—m.s. RedCherries, author of mother, winner of the American Book Award and National Book Award Finalist
 
“Rey M. Rodríguez sheds light on Boyle Heights with this striking collection of illuminating poems of struggle, grit, community, sacrifice, and triumph. In language that is clear, vivid, and haunting, Rodríguez provides the reader with a window into the often-hard realities of city life in Los Angeles. Like Luis J. Rodríguez, Sandra Cisneros, and Pablo Neruda before him, Rodríguez captures our hearts, minds, and souls with lush poems that inspire via the social conscious lens.”
 
—Jose Hernandez Diaz, author of Portrait of the Artist as a Brown Man (Ren Hen Press)
 
 
“Todos Somos Sagrados/All Are Sacred, Rey M. Rodríguez's debut collection, moves with the curative force of a sanctuary forged in community—echoing the women of Proyecto Pastoral at Dolores Mission, for whom care was a daily, radical practice. Sanctuary here is collective: Brown communities recognizing one another as fully human, refusing erasure through presence and mutual regard. Set in Aliso Pico and East Los Angeles, these poems bear luminous witness to Brown lives shaped by labor and class, insisting that what grows most urgently—and most defiantly—are people. Written in language that is both beautifully wrought and politically clear, Todos Somos Sagrados advances a vision of love as action, where spirituality and responsibility to others are inseparable. These poems stand as vital testimonios of a time and place, naming the enduring, world-making power of coming together.”
 
—Diana Marie Delgado, author of Tracing the Horse (BOA Editions) and editor, Like a Hammer: Poets on Mass Incarceration (Haymarket Books, 2025)
 
 
"Rey M. Rodríguez's Todos Somos Sagrados is social poetry of the highest order. At its center is the Proyecto Pastoral at Dolores Mission—a Los Angeles Catholic Jesuit community that transforms poverty into spiritual flowers, where homeless men teach us what mass means, and where priests, like Father Gregory Boyle, truly practice the teachings of Jesus. Rodríguez's poetry pays ceaseless tribute to the creative energy of "Lupe, Paula, Margarita, / Yolanda, Esperanza, Rita, / Rosa, Sofia," and the countless women who risked their lives—gave their tears, time, and labor—to create joy through dignifying service at the church and its many sister programs. Rodríguez, whose compassion extends well beyond the pages of this collection, sets a shining example against the cobardia (the cowardice) that keeps so many from the profound work of "inclusion, non-violence, unconditional loving, kindness, and compassionate acceptance" that, as Father Boyle explains in his elegant preface, Jesus taught. This book is radical love landing in a desperate moment."
   
—Jake Fournier, firefighter, scholar of abolitionist poetry, author of Punishment Bag, and instructor at the Institute of American Indian Arts
 
 
 
Rey M. Rodríguez is a writer, advocate, and attorney. He lives in Pasadena, California. He is working on a novel set in Mexico City. He attended the Yale Writers’ Workshop multiple times and Palabras de Pueblo workshop once. He participated in Story Studio’s Novel in a Year Program. He received his MFA in fiction from the Institute of American Indian Arts in May 2026. His poetry is published in Huizache. His interviews and book reviews can be found at La Bloga, Chapter House’s Storyteller’s Corner, Full Stop, Pleiades Magazine, and the Los Angeles Review. He is a graduate of Cornell, Princeton, and U.C. Berkeley Law School.
 
Javier H. Morrone is a California Certified Court Interpreter and president of Lex Lingua Court Interpreters, Inc., with a distinguished career spanning more than fifteen years across legal, medical, academic, and diplomatic settings. Holding graduate degrees in American History and Economics from California State University Los Angeles, he teaches medical and legal translation and interpretation at UCLA Extension, Pasadena City College, and Moreno Valley College. Javier has interpreted for the California Courts, the U.S. Department of Justice immigration courts, international conferences, and high-profile events including the Summit of the Americas, the UN-hosted Climate Summit, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and live broadcasts of two FIFA World Cups. 
 
Jose Ramirez is an artist. In the past 30 years, he has illustrated children’s books, painted murals and completed commissions for numerous organizations and individuals. Ramirez is also an educator. He has taught in LAUSD for over 30 years (mostly 3rd grade) and is currently an Intervention Specialist at Esperanza Elementary in the Pico-Union neighborhood of Los Angeles.