A 4-part poetry collection that explores women's roles in familial dynamics, immigration, and El Salvador's civil war while reflecting on the death of the poet's father
A National Poetry Series winner, selected by the celebrated poet Reginald Dwayne Betts
A 4-part poetry collection that explores women's roles in familial dynamics, immigration, and El Salvador's civil war while reflecting on the death of the poet's father
A National Poetry Series winner, selected by the celebrated poet Reginald Dwayne Betts
When COVID-19 broke and the United States closed the border to travel, Alexandra Lytton Regalado was separated from family back in El Salvador. She wrote Relinquenda entirely during lockdown as a meditation on cancer, the passing of her father, and the renewed significance of community.
The central part of the collection focuses on her father during his 6-year struggle with cancer and considers how his stoicism, alcoholism, and hermitage might serve as mirror and warning. In contrast, she dedicates other poems to what it means for daughters, mothers, and wives to care for another as reflected in her relationships with the men in her life.
Situated in the tropical landscapes of Miami, Florida and El Salvador, the poems also negotiate the meaning of home, reflecting on immigration and the ties between United States and El Salvador 30 years after her birth country's decade-long civil war.
In a lyrical and often bilingual voice, Regalado explores the impermanence and the body, communication and inarticulation, and the need to let go in order to heal regrets.
By:
Alexandra Regalado
Imprint: Beacon Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 216mm,
Width: 140mm,
Weight: 567g
ISBN: 9780807007105
ISBN 10: 0807007102
Pages: 120
Publication Date: 29 November 2022
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Relinquenda I. Mamá Tacuazín Hija, an Inheritance The Giantess Videofeed from the American Embassy of El Salvador I Prided Myself on Being Aguantadora El Puente Que Nos Une A Family History of Alcoholism Cavities Are Inherited Elegy with Wisdom Teeth How to Crack an Egg Hands Just Like Two Balloons Hacer de Tripas Corazón Caracol II. What My Father Taught Me About Black Holes Probably the Most My Father Has Ever Said to Me The Hero Myth Drownproofing Invasive Vesper Bells What My Father Taught Me About Evolution Escape Room Turning the Stone, Contrapuntal Portrait of My Father X Days Before Dying Concierto de Aranjuez The Garden of Earthly Delights Hesperides III. And Per Se And Ánima, Silueta de Cohetes: The Night I Met Him When We Were Long-Distance Lovers Marginalia of La Vita Nuova Tin Anniversary Do You Know How Ugly You Are to Me Right Now? Hiking Through a Slot Canyon Marriage as Tributary: What’s Left in the Bend of May Bufo Lovesong Blank Card IV. Stalemate Caravana Migrante Pentimento Hermitage To My Reflection as I Wash Dishes Vanitas Five American Sentences Verano, El Repunte What My Father Taught Me About Time Travel The Art Is Knowing When to Stop Acknowledgments Notes Special Thanks
Alexandra Lytton Regalado is author, editor, or translator of more than 15 Central American-themed books. She is also the cofounder and codirector of Editorial Kalina. Her poetry collection, Matria, won the St. Lawrence Book Award. She is a CantoMundo fellow, winner of the Coniston Prize, and her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry, The Academy of American Poets, Narrative, Gulf Coast, and Creative Nonfiction among others. Connect with her online at alexandralyttonregalado.com.
Reviews for Relinquenda: Poems
A very moving and profound book by one of the most significant LGBTQ+ voices coming from Latin America. -The Morning Star Resilient, introspective, and reverent. -Harvard Review Relinquenda is a rarity in that, in one book, it contains multiplicity of longings and reckonings. Alexandra Regalado is poet as historian, and poet as that family member we all have who keeps the names in whatever holy book we name, the one who has the photo albums-and more than that, who we gather around when they begin to sing our stories. -Reginald Dwayne Betts
