Poem Home: Rest with a Poetry Reading

Описание: There was nothing practical I could do.


So I read poems.


That might sound indulgent. It isn’t meant to be. It’s just the most honest thing I know how to do when I don’t have control. Reading feels like a way to stay present instead of spiraling. It feels like a way to honor a place without pretending I understand it completely.


I chose Mexican poets because Mexico isn’t an abstraction to me. It’s where someone I love lives. It’s streets, apartments, markets, music, neighborhoods. It’s language and language matters.


When things feel unstable, I don’t want analysis. I want voices. I want to hear how other people think and feel inside their own histories. Translation lets me do that. It doesn’t solve anything, but it keeps me from narrowing my view of the world down to fear.


That’s enough, sometimes.


The Poets I Read


Here’s the full list from the stream, in the order I moved through them:


Verónica Volkow – Arcana and Other PoemsTranslated by Louise Engleman & Michael SmithPublished by Shearsman Books


María Baranda – FicticiaTranslated by Joshua EdwardsPublished by Shearsman Books


Coral Bracho – It Must Be a MisunderstandingTranslated by Forrest GanderPublished by New Directions


Rocío Cerón – Diorama(Bilingual edition)


Valerie Mejero Caso – Edinburgh NotebookTranslated by Michelle Gil-Montero


Octavio Paz – “A Tale of Two Gardens”(from various collected translations)


All of the books I read from are bilingual editions. I like having the Spanish and English side by side, even when my Spanish is limited. It reminds me that what I’m reading is an approximation of something living in another structure of sound and thought.


Why These Poems Felt Right


A pattern emerged as I read: fragmentation.


Several of these poets—especially the contemporary women—push language hard. They refuse neat sentences. They break image continuity. They let meaning destabilize.


It can feel disorienting but disorientation is honest. Violence is disorienting. Political instability is disorienting. Being far away from someone you care about while their world feels uncertain is disorienting.


Linear poems would have felt dishonest.


What I love about these writers is that they don’t try to tidy experience. They let it stay jagged. They let language stretch to the point of strain. Reading them aloud forces you to slow down and accept that not everything resolves.


Reading Aloud as a Way of Staying Steady


I don’t read poetry aloud because I think I’m particularly good at it.


I do it because it forces me to breathe. When I’m anxious, I read faster. When I’m trying to control something, I push through it. Poetry resists that. You can’t rush a long sentence without losing it. You can’t fake your way through complicated syntax. You have to pay attention.


It also creates a kind of shared time. If you’re listening, we’re moving at the same pace for a few minutes. We’re inhabiting the same lines. That matters more to me than analysis or explanation.


Nothing Grand


I don’t think poetry fixes violence. I don’t think reading Mexican poets is a political solution. I don’t think listening to an hour of translated work changes global systems.


But I do think it changes the texture of an afternoon.


It keeps a place human in my mind instead of reducing it to danger. It reminds me that Mexico is writers and translators and presses and long traditions of thought—not just whatever is trending on a news feed.


And personally, it helps me process fear without becoming smaller because of it.


If you listened, thank you. If you didn’t, the recording is there. I’ll keep doing these as long as I can.


Poetry isn’t a strategy for me; it’s just how I stay connected.


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