BOOK REVIEW

Nature and Hope in the Dreamstate: The Palace by Andrés Cerpa

By Naya Clark     January 26, 2026




The Palace
Andrés Cerpa
Alice James Books (2026)
100 pp. $21.95 (paperback)

Andrés Cerpa’s The Palace contains poems that feel like they live in the past, nostalgic for nature.

Cerpa, writer of Bicycle in a Ransacked City: An Elegy (2019) and The Vault (2021), separates this latest collection into six parts, punctuated by Roman numerals. Each poem a skylight into Cerpa’s scenic memories.

The first poem, “Late Work” begins with a lamentation:

I feel compelled to give you an ending, a promise of hope
to move against despair

Although The Palace overall doesn’t feel weighted with mourning, Cerpa initiates the collection with the promise of a hopeful ending—perhaps wishing to give the reader something with more levity. He makes flooring observations between recollection and the natural world that can make a reader swell with appreciation for the natural world and the way seemingly mundane moments liken themselves to it.

As the collection continues, Cerpa paints pictures of not just being in nature—but being nature. In “We Are the Transient Ones” he writes:

our time in the orchard where you became the orchard
then laughed in a crevice of trees
I feel the whispers of owls so far north that no human will ever see them again.
Memory is a dead animal lost in its grandeur.

In addition to the beloved reminisce, the poem is a balance between the cavernous emotions of remiss and light. Toggling between pining and emotional opulence. And although that’s clear in “We Are the Transient Ones,” the sensibility is pervasive in every aspect of the collection.

Throughout The Palace, the imagery of nature morphs. Cerpa compares the scenes of his memory to glints of species, happenings, and seasons of the natural world that have the potential to make a reader’s heart flutter with appreciation for the ability to notice, even in moments that feel challenging and mundane.

In some poems, Cerpa’s memories swirl. They're disorienting, and it’s unclear if Cerpa is doing so to insert us into the scenes or express the rhythm his own mental meanderings.

Other poems like “Some Eden” illustrate natural landscapes alongside ponderings of a distant relative, and ideas of what it means to make it in America—a timely and personal meditation. He ponders:

[...]But if history will have Uncle Charlie,
& I ask that it does,
let us walk to a place where he is not the casualty
of something larger. We’d have to stand
at the edge of a lava flow for that to happen--
a place where earth makes new ground.

Hope and weariness are palpable long after reading “Some Eden.” Intertwined in the collection’s entirety, Cerpa’s thoughts and musings ebb and flow between survival, thriving, and how—even as a blip in the grand scheme of it all, the Earth makes way for us to notice organic spectacles and sigh it in.

In one of his shortest poems of the collection—entitled “When Did I Become So Vaguely Religious?”—Cerpa writes of a glimmering hope within a barren landscape:

Even my body, pressed to the frost,
can make the beginnings of spring.

Overall, The Palace is for those who take solace in daydreaming and words arranged for sonic satisfaction. And while Cerpa uses the charming language often seen in poetry (e.g., clouds, coffee, the seasons, snow, labyrinths, dreams, etc.), he also toggles with the notion of place, particularly in the context of America’s landscape. Take his thrice recurring “Diaspora Poem” for instance. Each title sits separate from one another within The Palace but cohesively make reference to America as a symbol of a fresh start. He writes of the longing, potential, reconciliation, and redemption that can easily feel beyond grasp before admitting:

[...]In this country,
heaven is a memory I can’t touch.

In the title’s last appearance, his abuela’s memory unpacks what it means to achieve. Concluding with:

We didn’t come to this country to starve.
We came here to study & eat.

That sort of straightforwardness and clarity is pervasive in each of Cerpa’s poems. In “The Most Honest Poem I Could Write Today,” Cerpa reflects on his personal life, his career, writing this current collection of poetry, mundane and precious memories, and irksome specifics like constantly losing his phone, mundane—yet meaningful memories, in which he has to carefully navigate the subjects of psychedelics for more profitability. It indeed is an honest poem that reflects on itself.

Although “The Most Honest Poem I Could Write Today” may be one of the most encompassing pieces of this body of work, “Elegy with Atlantic City in All Its Glory” might be one of the strongest. It’s a vivid requiem set at the crux of a casino, the ever-elusive American dream, environmental damage, and Cerpa’s memory of a childhood friend. Phrases like: “a hush like cards on felt,” “the glittering Escalade / of American wealth is screaming its silence,” and “sticks of dynamite in a whale” are striking, and various callbacks reinstate the precarity of gambling—or living in America.

The Palace contains poems of worry and poems that embody gratitude after a long day, like “Then a Voice to Remember This Heaven.” Others glimmer with details of his life, such as maintaining sobriety and being a father. Moments where he discusses his present life feel refreshing and resolute.

Take “Fog in the Mouth of the Mountain” for instance. Where Cerpa describes a heart-swelling moment that lingers: The grandiose, yet simple, moment of connecting with friends.

There is a feeling within me I can’t touch
that reminds me of a heaven ascending,
an always autumn where the sunset lingers
in a cash-for-gold like splendor.
And today I am alive by a thread—a road that ends
with my friends opening their arms,
the mountains beneath them,
as they say simple things like It’s good to see you.
It’s been too long. How was the drive?

Between the shimmering nature scene and concise affirmations, the piece has a similar quality to Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese.” The Palace is a wonderful read for every season—but particularly in moments matching Cerpa’s wistful pen. The collection lends itself to being read in between long looks out of windows and picking up and down as sceneries change with each season.

Cerpa’s style is neat, flowery, and vulnerably bearing his reflections. The resounding motif is hope in Earth’s ability to hold us and our memories. In The Palace, Cerpa is a nature poet reminding us to observe prosaic moments so nature can echo through us.



​The Palace by Andrés Cerpa

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NAYA CLARK is an interdisciplinary writer based in Atlanta, where she roams the “city in the forest” in search of stories worth telling. Her work spans cultural criticism, community journalism, fiction, and conversations with other artists and writers. She’s contributed to The Rumpus, Pool Party, Canopy Atlanta, Los Angeles Review of Books, and more. You can find her words at NayaClark.com.