Perros Argentinos // Argentine Dogs

In her debut collection of poetry and prose, Perros Argentinos, Justine Marrion Massey gives a fearless recounting of her travels through Argentina and Uruguay, and back to California, where along the way she discovers that true freedom comes not from escape but from deep connection. Through poetry, narrative vignettes, and reflections that dance between English and Spanish without losing the thread, Massey creates a sensory tapestry of dusty roads, mountain vistas, and late-night conversations with strangers who become family.
The collection moves between moments of transcendent beauty-handstands on multicolored hills, impromptu musical sessions in garages-and confrontations with hard truths about loss, climate crisis, and human resilience. At its core, this book asks what it means to touch the earth, to be touched by it in return, and to accept both its nurturing abundance and its wounded state in an age of environmental upheaval and potential.

Justine Marrion Massey is an author, artist, and attorney. Growing up watching sunsets over the ocean on the foggy North Coast of California, she was nurtured by a mixed forest of fir, redwood, oak, and madrone. The land taught her about being human in the context of nature and about life hiding under leaves. Justine was first introduced to Spanish in a bilingual kindergarten class and pursued the language enthusiastically. This opened doors to learn directly from various cultures, starting at the age of sixteen in Honduras via Amigos de las Américas. Justine holds degrees from Stanford University, the National University of Art in Argentina, and University of California Davis School of Law. She completed a Levinthal Tutorial for poetry and was a co-recipient of the Beagle II Award. During nearly four years spent between Argentina and Uruguay, she developed projects such as (((BOOM))): Global Creative Action and Tejer las Américas Weave the Americas, and interned with UNESCO in the Intergovernmental Hydrological Program in Montevideo. Justine attended the 75th United Nations General Assembly and contributed to a Special Rapporteur's 2020 report outlining the reciprocal effects of climate change and culture. She has worked to uphold the Human Right to Water in California and advances nature-based solutions to phase out fossil fuel emissions while increasing community resilience.-