Description
Book SynopsisPoems from a critically acclaimed Cuban writer available in English for the first time. Imbued with a sensuality reminiscent of the work of Anaïs Nin, Wendy Guerra’s
Delicates takes readers on an exhilarating journey through the cities of love, where women leave their bodies “in the showers of men,” marking their territory “like animals in heat,” their panties “saturated with sand and a sidereal isolating odor.” Guerra’s shocking metaphors and images invite us to enter her gallery of striking and provoking poems where we witness a flight through the air from a thirty-fourth-story window and a woman’s pilgrimage to the salt flats “to taste the pink in stones” on her lover’s behalf. Guerra’s relationship with her native Cuba—much like her relationships with men—is complex and multilayered. Her work confronts the realities of a political system that doesn’t celebrate artistic freedom. Here we have a new way of looking at a woman, an artist, a country, and the colonizers of that country. In these music-infused poems, Guerra shares with us her hard-won truths.
Trade Review“Guerra is a Cuban poet who takes the island’s colonial history as a subject and expands it into other contexts like the dynamics of erotic relationships.” * New York Times *
“Guerra boldly rifts and morphs her imagery on her way to dramatic endings in poems ranging from the volcanic sex of 'From Pompeii' to other intimate and political exiles. The result is a restless and provocative interrogation of power.” * LitHub *
"What a gift this volume is—the first of Guerra’s collections to appear in English—a labor of love from Carlson and Snyder 13 years in the making. Sensuous and passionate, the poems in
Delicates sing the praises of bodily pleasure and push against the constraints imposed on the human spirit, whether by autocratic governments or puritanical social mores." * Washington Independent Review of Books *
"Cuban poet and novelist Guerra’s work has not often been translated into English, so this volume is a welcome gift to Anglophone readers. . . The range of emotions and tones in
Delicates speak to the comprehensiveness of Guerra’s poetic approach: a compelling book of longing and loss." * The Millions *
Table of Contents1.Peninsular Psalm
2.Red
3.Snow in Havana
4.Winter Sports
5.Salt
6.Traveling in Reverse
7.A Face in the Crowd
8.Memory and Dust
9.News from the Queen
10.Closed Season on Manatees
11.Inuit Promise
12.Vertigo over the Niagara
13.Delicates
14.Breaking Crystal Dragonflies
15.Kaos Is Written with K
16.The Actress
17.Naughty Girl
18.Ideas for Silhouettes
19.Last Apocrypha of Ana Mendieta
20.Possible Similes
21.Metro Map
22.Promenade through the Private Museum
23.Orgy of The Wind
24.Jazz Trio
25.The Prince and the Pauper
26.The Year It Snows
27.Airport
28.From Pompeii
29.Far Away Like Cuba
30.Curatorship
31.Vertical Psalm
32.On Your Knees
33.Excess Baggage
34.Consulted Archives
35.Without Salvation
36.A Cabala of Castoffs
37.Touché
38.Razor to the Wind
39.Living on The Airwaves
40.On How the Russians Started Saying Goodbye
41.Déclassée
42.Sea of Tears
43.Bunk Beds
44.The Worst Thing about Incest
