Emerging BIWOC Poet Spotlight

This monthly series features poems by women of color in the early stages of their careers. It is our intention to create more space at Perugia for the work of BIWOC, and we hope using our modest platform to celebrate this work will expand the readership of the poets we spotlight. This series aligns with Perugia’s mission to support and promote emerging women poets; all the featured poems will be from BIWOC poets with no more than one published full-length collection. We’d love to hear from readers with suggestions for poems & poets to feature.

October 2022 Poet: SARA LUPITA OLIVARES

Of Inheritance

Because of the reckless woods
	     what follows doesn't make the bird call back.

What in private image remains unknown
	     to even oneself.

Guadalupe hated the north because it was
	     too blanco and she spoke little English.

Her children and their children a kind of muteness
	     the weeds could retract.

Each small thing that vanishes
	     takes up more space.

The tops of the pines point
	     toward nothing. The mirror of non-identity

where shortfall is to fury as place
	     is to self-silence.

Source

Migratory Sound, The University of Arkansas Press, 2020

Poet Bio

Sara Lupita Olivares is the author of Migratory Sound (The University of Arkansas Press), which was selected as winner of the 2020 CantoMundo Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The New York Times, Black Warrior Review, Hayden’s Ferry ReviewImage Journal, and elsewhere. She lives, teaches, and writes in the Midwest. 

To learn more about Sara Lupita Olivares, visit her website.