My voice begins to crack so I clear my throat. I look at each one of the girls one by one. The heat in me rises. My skin feels like the Texas pavement in July.
The characters in this collection frequently daydream about time. Children and teens want to speed it up so life can start. Grown-ups ask time to slow, or rewind to get some of it back.
Jennifer Martelli discusses her debut collection of poetry, The Uncanny Valley, growing up saturated with images of the Madonna, and her experience of motherhood first as a daughter and now as a mother.
I think that the moment we’re living in offers the best opportunity we’ve had in a long time in that a lot of things having to do with identity politics are being talked about in poems.
It took me nearly twenty years and the power of a fine film to fully realize what happened to me in the confessional was an inappropriate act by an adult against a child.
“You were promised to the religion,” Carlos Aldama says, his eyes watery and somber. “One of your parents said, ‘Mi hija lo paga.’” My daughter will pay.