RELINQUENDA, Beacon Press, October 11, 2022
Winner of the National Poetry Series, 2021, Selected by Reginald Dwayne Betts
"Relinquenda is a rarity in that in one book it contains multiplicity of longings and reckonings. Alexandro Lytton Regalado is poet as historian, and poet as that family member we all have who keeps the names in whatever holy book we name, the one who has the photo albums – and more than that, who we gather around when they begin to sing our stories."
—Reginald Dwayne Betts
In her second book of poems (after “Matria”), the noted Salvadoran writer and editor focuses on family and especially the impending death of her father, his “body beneath the sheet/Spotlit through gap-tooth/Shutters.”
—New York Times
“Resilient, introspective, and reverent.”
—Harvard Review
“Poet Alexandra Lytton Regalado grew up in Miami and then moved back to El Salvador — where she continues to write, edit and organize spaces for writers across borders and languages. From San Salvador, last year she published her second book of poems, “Relinquenda,” a meditative collection written after her father’s death, which won the prestigious National Poetry Series competition.”
—Los Angeles Review
“Powerful, moving. Dazzling lyrical voice. Not to be missed.”
—The Morning Star
Book Launch: Books & Books, 265 Aragon Ave, Coral Gables, Miami, October 12, 2022, 6:30pm
ORDER LINKS:
Beacon Press: http://www.beacon.org/Relinquenda-P1865.aspx
Indiebound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780807007105
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/1140870742
Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/books/relinquenda-poems/9780807007105
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0807007102/
Short Description:
Relinquenda explores Salvadoran masculinity in a post-war immigrant family, as reflected primarily through Regalado’s relationship with her father during his six-year struggle with cancer. The poems of Relinquenda (Latin: relinquish) take place between Miami, Florida and El Salvador and they center on themes of impermanence and the body, communication and inarticulation, and the broken and mended ties of family relationships.
Long description:
In a lyrical and often bilingual voice, the poems of Relinquenda (Latin: relinquish) by Alexandra Lytton Regalado center on themes of impermanence and the body, communication and inarticulation, and the broken and mended ties of family relationships. Regalado explores the roles of women—daughter, wife, mother—and what it means to care for another as reflected in the relationships with the men in her life: father, husband, son. Meshing childhood memories—her own and her children’s—the speaker considers love and loss in marriage and parenting and struggles to define what is “enough.” These poems speak of resilience and also the need to crack open, of what we need to cling to, and what we need to let go of.
Written after the death of her father and in the months when Regalado was separated from her family due to closed borders during the COVID-19 pandemic, Relinquenda addresses themes of anxiety, pain, and isolation. The central part of the book focuses on her relationship with her father during his six-year struggle with cancer and considers how his stoicism, alcoholism, and hermitage might serve as mirror and warning. Counterpart to her father poems is the section of poems she dedicates to her husband; Regalado traces paths through love and forgiveness across twenty years of marriage. Her poems confront ideals versus reality and ruminate on this: the way we love others says a lot about how we love ourselves.
The poems of Relinquenda explore the map of the human body, often obsessing on certain parts: teeth, bones, hair, hands. The poems approach aging and death with insight and acceptance. Regalado searches the natural world for symbols, animals become nahuales, as she tries to establish a balance between reason and faith, mathematics and poetry, science and magical thinking. Many poems respond to visual art; including the works of Leonora Carrington, Ana Mendieta, Rene Magritte, Graciela Iturbide, and others. Some poems include lines, take inspiration, or respond to the work of authors such as Tracy K. Smith, Rainer Maria Rilke, Joy Harjo, Andrés Montoya, Audre Lorde and more.
The poems, which take place between the tropical landscapes of Miami, Florida and El Salvador, negotiate the meaning of home, and they consider themes of immigration and the relationship between United States and El Salvador thirty years after her birth country’s decade-long civil war. Certain poems highlight El Salvador’s growing crisis of violence against women. Circling through images of stone and seed, resistance and vulnerability, Regalado’s poems lament, question, and seek atonement.