November 18, 2024

Pinion by Monica Rico (Four Way Books, 2024)

ephemeral by heidi andrea restrepo rhodes (The Lorca Latinx Poetry Prize, 2024)

the eaters of flowers by ire’ne lara silva (Saddle Road Press, 2024)

When Frida Kahlo reportedly said, “Not fragile like a flower, but fragile like a bomb,” she could have been describing the latest books from Monica Rico, heidi andrea restrepo rhodes, and ire’ne lara silva—three fierce past Huizache contributors. In the eaters of flowers, silva writes: “this is what/no one tells you/that there is a medicine you can/make of yourself.” These books contain recipes for resistance. In Pinion, Rico writes: “In my fingerprints are the spines of nopal… /My elbows are molcajetes ready to grind and smash any fool/who tries to build a wall around me.” Here are the ingredients for tasting beauty in survival, as when rhodes writes of being in lockdown during the pandemic in ephemeral: “Still, we search for ramps and mullein/in the fermenting woods of April. Make bread/with our hands & tinctures to bring back/sweet dreams. We drink the land in…” These books conjure a bitter delicious, a spiritual chemistry of ancestry and earth. In silva’s words: “the poetry of eating flowers/as our ancestors ate them/savored and transformed.”

Monica Rico was published in Huizache 9, heidi andrea restrepo rhodes was published in Huizache 6 and 11, and ire’ne lara silva was published in Huizache 3, 5, and 10.

– Beth Suter, Huizache Staff