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The Blue Mimes: Poems
Win a free print copy of this book!
3 days and 21:39:31
25 copies available
U.S. only
Sara Daniele Rivera’s award-winning debut is a collection of sprawling elegy in the face of catastrophic grief, both personal and public. From the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election through the COVID-19 pandemic, these poems memorialize lost loved ones and meditate on the not-yet gone—all while the wider-world loses its sense of connection, safety, and assurance. In those years of mourning, The Blue Mimes is a book of grounding and heartening resolve, even and especially in the states of uncertainty that define the human condition.
Rivera’s poems travel between Albuquerque, Lima, and Havana, deserts and coastlines and cities, Spanish and English—between modes of language and culture that shape the contours of memory and expose the fault lines of the self. In those inevitable fractures, with honest, off-kilter precision, Rivera vividly renders the ways in which the bereft become approximations of themselves as a means of survival, mimicking the stilted actions of the people they once were. Where speech is not enough, this astonishing collection finds a radical practice in continued searching, endurance without promise—the rifts in communion and incomplete pictures that afford the possibility to heal.
Rivera’s poems travel between Albuquerque, Lima, and Havana, deserts and coastlines and cities, Spanish and English—between modes of language and culture that shape the contours of memory and expose the fault lines of the self. In those inevitable fractures, with honest, off-kilter precision, Rivera vividly renders the ways in which the bereft become approximations of themselves as a means of survival, mimicking the stilted actions of the people they once were. Where speech is not enough, this astonishing collection finds a radical practice in continued searching, endurance without promise—the rifts in communion and incomplete pictures that afford the possibility to heal.
- GenresPoetry
72 pages, Paperback
Expected publication April 2, 2024
About the author
Sara Daniele Rivera
2 books5 followersSara Daniele Rivera is a Cuban and Peruvian American artist, writer, translator, and educator from Albuquerque, New Mexico. She received her MFA in creative writing from Boston University. Her writing has appeared in the Loft Anthology, The Green Mountains Review, Storyscape Journal, spoKe, The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: a Latinx Anthology, The Bat City Review, and elsewhere. She was the recipient of a 2017 St. Botolph Club Emerging Artist Award, the winner of the 2018 Stephen Dunn Prize in Poetry from Solstice Literary Magazine, and a 2022 Tin House resident. She is the co-translator of The Blinding Star: Selected Poems of Blanca Varela (Tolsun Books, 2021). She lives in Albuquerque.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 22, 2024
Beautifully written. These collections of poems in English and Spanish shows some thoughtful moments. The words in these poems are a worth of an expression.
Thanks to the publishers at Graywolf Press and NetGalley for giving me an opportunity to read this collection of poems and do a review.
Thanks to the publishers at Graywolf Press and NetGalley for giving me an opportunity to read this collection of poems and do a review.
November 28, 2023
Gorgeous. Heart wrenching. An exposition on what it is to be human. I had tears in my eyes during most of the poems and felt connected to people I didn't even know, but I know have shared these similar situations in life. Too often, I think we assume that we are entirely alone in our experiences but we have more in common with perfect strangers that we anticipate and this collection of poems shows just that.
October 17, 2023
I am so thankful for the auto-approvals of Graywolf Press on Netgalley and Sara Daniele Rivera for granting me access to this wonderfully bittersweet collection of poems. The Blue Mimes speaks of the times during and after great political tension, global health risks, the transparency of never-truer colors, and generational hurt that reveals itself time and time again. This collection is set to hit shelves on April 2, 2024, and I'm so excited!
January 22, 2024
I am at a loss for words after reading this collection, as though Sara Daniele Rivera had just ripped the few that remained from the cavity of my chest. These poems are a powerful expression of loss and grief that turn over themselves in an exquisite braid of language. It’s only January and I already know this will be one of my—if not most—favorite book I’ll read this year. I cannot wait to own a copy of this in print. Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy.
February 2, 2024
ARC given by NetGalley for Honest Review
An emotional journey of family, grief, heritage, and belonging. The form is fresh and full of expression and I really love when poetry is bilingual. It feels homey and authentic.
My favorite poems are: "multi-nights", "Sonnet to Sleep Paralysis", and "Poem for a Scorpion Child."
An emotional journey of family, grief, heritage, and belonging. The form is fresh and full of expression and I really love when poetry is bilingual. It feels homey and authentic.
My favorite poems are: "multi-nights", "Sonnet to Sleep Paralysis", and "Poem for a Scorpion Child."
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews