Verás

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This debut poetry collection from Stephanie Laterza describes motherhood in a time of violence and separation

The word mother appears in some form, directly or in spirit, on nearly every page of Stephanie Laterza’s poetry collection VERÁS, but the truth of motherhood she shows here is the lesson she learned from a grandmother who spent too much of her life pregnant: “the longer you live / the longer you lose.” The losses recounted here are often children who are victims of violence, most outrageously perpetrated by those in authority, killed by cops or in war or separated from their families by ICE, for “that’s the history of the U.S. / the deliberate ripping / the deliberate tearing / the deliberate wrenching of brown children / from their mothers’ arms on shores / the forced grief played and replayed.” In part this collection is a dedication to seeing that though “this is the way / it’s always been, it can no longer be.” But even more poignantly, in these poems Laterza also seeks to come to terms with her own troubled family history, of a difficult father and an uncle who became her guardian, buried in a dual plot by her grandmother in “the only real estate she ever purchased in America.” All of which determines Laterza to be a good mother to her son, whose cheeks she blankets with kisses “at least twenty times / each day you’ve been alive” so that “if I lost my life today, you’d have / at least one kiss left each day for the balance of yours,” providing him with the stability lacking in her own childhood so that he can live “secure in the belief that nothing that can’t be proven can hurt him.” That may be the most important thing she shows here: that a better life is possible.

Poetry. Family & Relationships. Women's Studies.

"[T]here is no god for small children," Stephanie Laterza laments in VERÁS [in English, You’ll See], her skillful debut full-length poetry collection, in empathy with those children—and with mothers, especially of brown children—damaged by ICE, police killings, vigilante violence, as well as aggression between nations. She writes about what cuts at the heart like broken glass, the death of her eight-year-old cousin. "[I]n English / they are thorns but in Spanish they are spines." But in spite of the harshness of the world, she expresses familial love in vivid portraits of her grandmother, who was forced by cultural pressures to bear far too many children, her problematic father, and her son, a boy "who’s only ever been poised / to take flight." Laterza draws the reader in with food as an expression of that love (she is also a cookbook author), taking us with her to look towards something better in the future tense.” —Susana H. Case, author of The Damage Done & Dead Shark on the N Train

“So much of motherhood is surviving the night,” and Stephanie Laterza shows us in stark detail the pain suffered and the courage found in her latest poetry collection, VERÁS. Not only will readers see the horrors of mothers surviving their children but, in particular, when their sons or daughters die from police violence and not natural causes. Or when a toddler is taken from a mother’s arms at the border. Laterza couples these experiences with the joy and innocence of raising her own little boy. The power of the mother and child bond reverberates in these poems as a soldier’s cry for his mother on the battlefield. As another son cries out for his mother while suffocating from a knee on his neck, Laterza reminds us the chord between them is where life begins, where it ends.” —Paola Corso, Vertical Bridges: Poems and Photographs of City Steps

<”In Stephanie Laterza’s poetry, the domestic expands to become worldly, exposed, and yet, safe in her care. “He balanced chicken soup in one of her cracked bowls / with a faded pink rose”, she writes. Her poems join generations. They show you a crib, a baby asleep in it, a tiny hand reaching between the bars for yours. Grandma loved Grandpa for his hands, his curly hair, and his temper. And God is in the midst, refracted through many prisms. VERÁS, this debut full-length collection, comes at you in long lines packed with detail. Still, each image and instance remains clearly discernible. The poet’s concern for nourishment and wellbeing is everywhere in evidence, from the lament in the title poem, to the protection she invokes throughout the book for her son. For Laterza, poetry is an active duty, as much as standing guard, or cooking, or dancing.” —Mervyn Taylor, author of Country of Warm Snow and The Last Train.

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