National Poetry Month: Leslie Sainz

Tension Introduction

What is the narrative function of fear? In the horror games I watch but don’t play, the protagonists are faceless. Nameless. Meaning: until you are threatened, you are nothing. Afterward, a captive nothing. Hotels, prisons, mansions, an apartment complex—we are most afraid of where we lay our heads. Doors disinterested in staying doors, tight hallways. You never begin with a flashlight but there are always portraits on the walls. Long women like Modigliani’s, like stretching, like fear. Metal stairs, wooden stairs, carpeted stairs, stairs. Then suddenly, every red you know. On ceilings, windowsills, tiles, sinks, behind you. It’s getting serious. Light is scarce. You are startled by the lost souls of women and children. You are startled when you become responsible for the lost souls of women and children. But the dark is desperate to lead you. And you are desperate, being led.

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Author photograph by Hillary Dubie

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Leslie Sainz is the author of Have You Been Long Enough at Table (Tin House, 2023), a finalist for the 2024 Audre Lorde Award. The daughter of Cuban exiles, her work has appeared in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, the Yale Review, Kenyon Review, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. A three-time National Poetry Series finalist, she’s received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, CantoMundo, and the Stadler Center for Poetry & Literary Arts at Bucknell University. Originally from Miami, she lives in Vermont and works as the managing editor of New England Review.

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