Dirt and Honey - Softcover

Vasquez Gilliland, Raquel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0999499564 ISBN 13: 9780999499566

Publisher: Green Writers Press, 2018

Synopsis

The retelling of Mexican family folktales, feminist reclamations of ancient myths, and new motherhood: Raquel Vasquez Gilliland’s debut collection, Dirt and Honey, unearths the connection of these experiences with innovative language. Gilliland writes across myth, describing a woman who grew leaves, the grandmother of God, and the story of her grandfather, who left for Texas as a refugee of the Mexican Civil War. Gilliland’s work centers readers in a place all her own―one in which ancient lineages are drawn with breast milk, seduction begins with feasts of peppers, and “fisherchildren” displaced by wars are always welcomed into new lands.

About this title

From the Author

Raquel Vasquez Gilliland is a Mexican-American poet and painter inspired by folklore, myth, and plants. Vasquez Gilliland’s work focuses on her Mexican-American heritage and identity, as well as preserving ancient folk tales in verse―tales that are both regional and familial. Dirt and Honey combines these focuses with themes of ecology and feminism. “My maternal elders raised me and my siblings to value stories,” writes Vasquez Gilliland. “Naturally, I’ve always been attracted to what I’ve been taught is sacred―storytelling― and through my work, I wish to pass on this reverence to those willing to learn.”  Her poems have appeared in Dark Mountain, Rattle, and Fairy Tale Review. Dirt and Honey is her debut collection and is the recipient of the Jason Wenger Award for Literary Excellence. Raquel Vasquez Gilliland lives in New Jersey with her husband and son.

Review

In her debut poetry collection, Dirt and Honey, Raquel Vasquez Gilliland invents worlds in which woman is synonymous with nature. In these poems, women are the first creators―pines grow from their words and flowers bloom at their feet. By offering these symbiotic relationships between humans and nature as mythical, these poems ask us to consider our own treatment of our environment, "to breed out the wild of a creature was to / breed out its moon. We need our moons." And we need this, a book so full of wilderness that you can't read it without getting dirt under your nails.    ―Paige Lewis, poet and author of Reasons to Wake You (Paige Lewis Paige Lewis)

Edition details

• Publisher: Green Writers Press
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0999499564
• ISBN 13: 9780999499566
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 128