Relinquenda

July 1, 2022

In The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets, Oct.), South Korean--born, Indiana-raised Cho wrestles with coming-of-age and cultural identity as she makes family stories her own. In Extinction Theory (Univ. of Georgia, Oct.), Kundiman fellow Lam uses sharp, bristly language as he examines family, language, and cultural repression to conclude that "Life is a series/ of extinctions." In Harbinger (Ecco, Oct.), Puhak vividly addresses artistic creation and the weight of memory. In Relinquenda (Beacon, Oct.), CantoMundo fellow Regalado writes of pain and uncertainty while stranded in the United States by pandemic and separated from her family in El Salvador. In Ask the Brindled (Milkweek, Oct.), queer, Indigenous Hawaiian Revilla addresses self, family, community, and love in rich new ways.

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October 15, 2022
Immediately following her father's death in 2020, Salvadoran American poet Regalado (Matria, 2017) found herself stranded in Miami due to COVID-19 border closures. Living with her mother, grandmother, and aunt and working through grief complicated by her father's stubbornly unrepentant life, Regalado wrote this second collection, the title of which means "that which is abandoned." To untangle conflicting feelings, Regalado explores a variety of forms, including lengthy prose poems and a visually striking contrapuntal lyric. Many poems employ long lines that read like they're pressed for time or running out of breath: "If I dance it'll be in the corner of a dark room / where the speaker booms through my body the way the geraniums sway in wind." The book's most surprising moments occur when Regalado interrupts longer lyrics with vivid, discomfiting imagery of everyday things that evoke memories of the deceased: "Our tiny white dog, foxlike, but old & / Toothless just a stinking gap / Of a mouth." With these brutally raw, tender, and uncompromising poems, Regalado joins Javier Zamora and Leticia Hern�ndez-Linares in the expanding pantheon of Salvadoran American poets.

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November 1, 2022

Following her award-winning Matria, Regalado's "National Poetry" series winner was written after COVID closed U.S. borders, separating her from family in El Salvador; her title (Latin for relinquish) indicates the tenor of her work. Set between Florida and El Salvador, the poems here fully commit to family and transitions, what we keep and what we let go. Throughout, Regalado examines the roles of women, mother, daughter, and wife and questions our impermanence as we struggle to hold onto some sense of safety or belonging ("Isn't it expected that one thing will chase another?/ Isn't it normal to want your space?"). An extended second section (of four) recounts the passing of her father from cancer--"Death is wild, we are told. He is both hunter and prey"--and the counsel she received; her mother tells her, "A dying person needs a moment alone." Frequently writing in response to Audre Lorde, Ana Mendieta, and Ren� Magritte, Regalado experiments with form (though her writing is not formal), using language that is both exquisite and empathetic and introducing phrases in Spanish throughout. VERDICT Beautiful in form and content, Regalado's lyrical work will appeal broadly to readers interested in emotional connection.--Karla Huston

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.