Lisa D. Chavez

This is my first book, and while I still like some of the poems in it, I feel like I've grown a lot as a writer and have changed a lot. I wrote a lot of these poems as a graduate student at ASU and this book shows a lot of the influence of Ai, a poet I greatly admire, and also one I studied with as a graduate student. These poems are mostly dramatic monologues about women of color struggling to survive and make a place for themselves in a destructive world.

This is my second book, and in my mind, quite a bit better than my first, Destruction Bay. Most of these poems were written while I was a graduate student at the University of Rochester. I became very interested in race relations in the 19th century, and a lot of these poems are drawn from historical sources: from captivity narratives and from photos and catalogues of the Worlds Fairs in Chicago and Saint Louis. I think of many of these poems as an exploration of the history of the United show more States. These poems are mostly narrative in style, and like my first book, most of them are not based on my personal experience, but rather show my passions, interests, and obsessions. show less

Stark, raw narrative poetry about the oppressed in a "century/ of dishonor, suffering and pain;" this book will lay your soul bare.

Picked up for free in a box in my college’s French department.