autumn/winter 2015-16
Socheata San writes that “the morning air rouses all objects from their own weight,” and, in the same way, the poems in this latest edition of Chaparral rouse life and vigor from its readers. We find ourselves being made again and again under the weight of these poems. From “the tinfoil stars” that we gaze upon to the “hemorrhagic sunset at the melting poles,” each verse takes the reader on a whirlwind of exploration, witness, and self-discovery. Whether it’s “one more fatal outbreak of faith along the Gaza Strip” to small universes of occurrences, we are left, as San writes, “motionless. Like the blossom pressed down by the chain-linked fence.”
