Kadupul Flower-By Kimberly Vargas Agnese

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

How are you all doing on this incredible Tuesday morning? I hope you are all enjoying the crispy mornings followed by the heat of the sun as it rises higher in the sky.

Today, I wanted to take a moment to thank Stephanie over at Stephanie’s Ninth Suitcase for allowing me to read her mother’s book, Kadupul Flower. I am honored to be a member of Kimberly’s launch team for her book, Kadupul Flower. I received a free digital (e-copy) of the book and I was so excited to dive right in and read it. In this post, I will give my honest and voluntary thoughts about the book.

Kimberly Vargas Agnese’s book was released on October 14th, 2025, and copies can be found at Barnes and Noble and Amazon. Below is the link to pick up your copy on Amazon.
https://a.co/d/4bmvsV7

Review

Kimberly is an amazing writer, and her insight is visionary for not only the past, but the future. Kimberly brings to light the difficulties within our society, as a whole.

Here is one of the parts that most impacted me:

In Kimberly’s poem, “Notes from a Neighborhood Meeting” she writes:

“Of course, the sheriff needed to be called 

so he could chase the guy to the other side of the tracks, 

where homeless people are allowed to exist 

if they can make it through the night without being killed”

This portion of the poem touched my heart, pulled at my need to help others, and made my heart broke all at the same time.

The line, “Where homeless people are allowed to exist,” is a clear lens into harsh societal misconceptions: implying that the rest of society is better than the homeless man. This part made me stop and think: How did he find himself here? How did the separation between people groups become so obvious?

About the Book
Fresno, California, may be the nation’s breadbasket, but it is also a food desert to some who call it home. Summer temperatures find their niche in the triple digits, and resilience makes its name in the fields and on the streets . . . it pours from the mouths of the children.
But dignity, all too often, comes with a price tag. The last $5.48 left on the food stamp card or the $200-plus it costs to ship over plant cuttings from Ecuador. Because even nature isn’t immune to commercialism.
Peel back the price tags and recall the meaning of worth in Kadupul Flower, a social-environmental justice collection from debut poet Kimberly Vargas Agnese.
My dear readers, please check out Kimberly’s book. It won’t disappoint. I used to be a poetry reader and though I still enjoy poetry, it’s not generally my go to, but Kadupul Flower takes on a whole new way of reading poetry while giving the reader something deeper to consider.
If you get a chance to read the book, please come back and give me a comment so I can make sure to pass them along to Kimberly and Stephanie.

Also, if you have time, check out Kimberly’s blog: