My first collection of poetry debut’s in June 2023 on El Martillo Press–and I’m really excited about the daughterland poems winding its way to these scrappy young (David A. Romero and Matt Sedillo) and their shared vision of delivering working class poetry with something to say into the world.
My poetry has always had problems not fitting in. It’s never been academic enough, never trendy enough, not street enough, not hallmark enough–give me a category and I’ll categorically tell you my poetry doesn’t fit there.
But now it’s found its homeland and I couldn’t be prouder of that.
In past years I’ve used this space to write a poem a day in poetry month. I’m not making that sort of promises. Time, trauma and circumstance got a way from me and I wasn’t able to post a Chicana writer a day on Twitter for women’s history month. So I’ll stop making promises.
Pre-Order info coming soon on the daughterland poems –a collection started in COVID times about Latina/Chicana mother/daughter relationships, sexual violence, racist high schools in Plumas County, suicidal ideation, and a search for identity—and how all that is intrinsically interconnected. It ends on a happy note, I promise that anyhow.
Meantime here are the first three poems for April’s poetry month:
April 1: A Eulogy
The world has always been
hardest
on you other worldly
creatures and i used to wonder
when you were small and
speaking with the faeries
and the trees how you would be,
how you would fit in the adult world.
you never did fit.
Your light too magical
too ethereal
too much for our mundane existence
rest my dearest sister
i will forget the last decade
with the you who was not you
the frightened stranger
with that bottle in hand.
Tonight i miss my sister
and i hope, sweet girl
that you’re talking with
the faeries and the trees
and dancing to all that joy
that was once your song.
(Sarah Rose 1978-2023)
April 2: My Brother’s 50th
My mother tells people
she had two only children
& my brother and I agree.
It’s his birthday–the big 5-0–
I text to the other side of the country
he’s in a state I cannot fathom
I’m in a state that shakes his head.
But who else on the planet knows
the depths of our beginnings, the crazy
of our lineage, the trajectory of both
our happiness and despair.
We have kept a running tab of each other’s mistakes,
accidents and desires like no one else can.
Happy Birthday, my brother, who tells me I sound
more and more like mom. We are now old enough
to love without needing to understand.
April 3 Family Disease
Okay, if I yell uncle now? My uncles have it
my mom has it. All the elderly in our fam died with it.
Diabetes you’ve won. I’ve nothing left
to cut out; nothing left to circumvent.
You were always bound to get here with
your both sides of the family history
unrelenting reminders all around me.
Maybe we can make the appointments, a game.
How many minutes will it take for the new
doctor to tell you not to eat things
you haven’t eaten in decades? I stand
at the ready. Pretending more steps will solve
something and I’m left with thinking well
everyone has to die of something. Ours goes mad,
goes blind, measures out our times in baking cups.
Denial once we stop the denial. Diabetes. You win.
Pre-Order info on the daughterland poems coming soon.
Throwing Chanclas 