Description
Poetry. Latino/Latina Studies. Winner of the 2017 St. Lawrence Book Award."Regalado's elegant debut, MATRIA, introduces us to a world where 'leaf-cutter ants... could easily strip the lime sapling bare in the course of one summer night.' These poems are so attuned to the intricacies of violence and desire, the pulse and rhythms of bringing new life into this world, and the cleaving that follows. I'm so grateful to hear this brave and beautiful new voice, a mighty force to be reckoned with—one who promises us, 'Yes, I will be the hunter, I will start / fires... their faces will pale in my darkness.'"—Aimee Nezhukumatathil
"Reading Alexandra Regalado's majestic first book, MATRIA, I stumble back through thedecades searching for a poet whose debut feels as deeply realized, as richly imagined—TracyK. Smith, Carolyn Forché, Robert Hass? There is such a surfeit of life and language in thisbook, which ranges geographically from Florida to El Salvador, and thematically across artand identity, class and power, motherhood and sisterhood, life and death. MATRIA reminds usthat words will never be deterred by walls, and nothing enriches American culture morethan the crossing of borders."—Campbell McGrath
"Truly remarkable poetry draws new connections between the emotional, physical, andpsychological landscapes our lives move through. This is especially true of MATRIA, astunning collection by Alexandra Lytton Regalado, who moves us among and between theintersections of motherhood and childhood, womanhood and country-hood. With arrestinglanguage full of grace and empathy, these poems dimension the uidity and complexity ofthese relationships as both witness and the witnessed, mother and child, native and foreigner,in both English and Spanish."—Richard Blanco
"An electrifying attentiveness to terror and to beauty animates MATRIA, a collection thatinterrogates the eternal bonds of family and the unending bloodshed in El Salvador. Vividimages and precise phrasing transform remembered and witnessed events into lyrical actsthat astonish. Rain becomes 'obsidian blades' then a 'rough beard' against skin. Salvatruchasdrowning another girl in Lake Coatepeque become mountains. Alexandra Lytton Regalado,like Rainer Maria Rilke, reminds us that tenderness and brutality live side-by-side. MATRIAis a powerful and unforgettable debut."—Eduardo C.Corral
Author Bio
Alexandra Lytton Regalado's poetry collection, MATRIA, is the winner of the St. Lawrence Book Award (Black Lawrence Press, 2017). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in cream city review, Creative Nonfiction, Gulf Coast, MiPOesias, The Notre Dame Review, NANO Fiction, Narrative, OCHO, Passages North, Puerto del Sol, Phoebe, Radar Poetry and elsewhere. Alexandra holds an MFA in poetry from Florida International University and an MFA in fiction from Pacific University. Co-founder of Kalina publishing, Alexandra is author, editor, and/or translator of more than ten Central American-themed books, most recently the bilingual Salvadoran prose anthology Vanishing Points (2017). She is the winner of the 2015 Coniston Poetry Prize and her work has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best New Poets. Alexandra has a black belt in Kenpo Karate and currently lives in San Salvador with her husband and three children. Her ongoing photoessay project about El Salvador, through_the_bulletproof_glass, is on Instagram.
Author City: SAN SALVADOR ELS