The Things We Bring with Us

Book excerpt: Sassy, witty, and expectedly peregrine, these panoramic poems are sharp and personal. They seem to arise from above, even higher than where pigeons choose to dismantle their bowel movements. Well-researched and deftly written, these tightly controlled, prudent, perceptive, and expedient poems are capable of turning your inflamed heart into snow or a Renaissance painting or a Catholic Church. - Vi Khi Nao, judge of the Charlotte Mew Prize The Things We Bring With Us: Travel Poems is simply stunning. The poems span the world and confront the baggage we carry and also the baggage burdened on us by others' narrow definitions of self. Huerta's razor-eyed insights combined with their precise language make for a dazzling debut. - Charlotte Pence, author of Code The poems in this chapbook debut tell stories I want to listen to. S.G. deftly writes of loneliness and feeling in-between, of traveling and searching for something in far-away places. It's a collection about being pulled in different directions, about finding oneself in traveling, but also in the places traveled-from. S.G. contemplates what they are drawn to and drawn from, carefully questioning the symmetry between the places they know well and the cities where they feel like a stranger. These powerful poems are queer and quiet, but ring loud with language, family, love, and eager movement through an unfamiliar world. - Sara Ryan, author of I Thought There Would Be More Wolves