Yesika Salgado

This is an accessible, unflinchingly honest collection of poems for all those who love too hard — who love so hard they lose their very selves. The specifics here are importantt too, of course — Selgado is brown, fat, Salvadoran, daughter of an alcoholic, lover of Los Angeles, feminist. There is just enough body shame/acceptance/joy here to resonate with The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love, (which I had read just before this) but the main theme here is the cycle of show more heartbreak — from seeking (The Hunger), to the thrill of connection (The Fruit), to beginnings of rupture (The Bruising), to the pain of breakup and loss (The Ache), to the reclaiming of self (The Return). Beautiful in its simplicity. show less

I love the overall flow of the poems and how they form a story as a whole. I really appreciated Yesika's strength when touching on subjects regarding sexual harassment/assault and on what it means to want to be loved as a fat woman. I loved all of the poems on the first two sections, "The Hunger" and "The Fruit", and other poems such as Molcajete and Clean And Fed.

Poems about being a fat girl, turning into your mother, lovers and self love.