What Is Left | Carla Rachel Sameth

Description:

What is Left

Carla Sameths poetry captures the sudden calamity of the pandemic and the way it has made us redraft the future, hold the helplessness of loss from the quiet of our homes, and continue to love despite the distance. The lens of the mother is at the heart of her poemsa mother who knows loss profoundly, a queer mother, and mother to a Black sonand offers potent and urgent currents of protection in a shaky world. She also delivers surprising notes of levity, andwe find ourselves in those moments too, and we ride the waves of both demise and recovery.

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Who in this time hasnt been stifled by need / to see your face / speak to you / unmasked?What Is Leftis a record of family life, outrage and grief during the COVID-19 pandemic and this new yet old era of racist violence in the US. Carla Rachel Sameths lyrical record is at once searingly personal and politically astute. There is surprising humor. There are fresh attempts at connection and tenderness, in particular between a mother and son. Above all, there persists in these moving pages a compassion for one anothers shared state of fragility. Hope emerges from this compassion and from the sensory delights that somehow go onsay, a flowers bold and delicate scent of possibilities.

Chen Chen, author ofWhen I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities

Carla SamethsWhat Is Leftis a beautifullyabsurd witness to the early days of the pandemic. Many will recognize the obsession with birds songs and sourdough bread, but as a mother to a 20-something Black son, Sameth creates poetry that deftly explores what parenting means in a world that does not allowfor care. As she moves the reader from spring 2020 to summer 2020, poems excavate the tragic public murder of George Floyd and what breath means in a pandemic where Black men are not allowed to breathe. With her son in constant danger and she at a loss forhow to protect him, her poetry finds comfort in music and home. This collection is honest, tender and poignantly humorous. It will feel like a touchstone to many.

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, author ofPosada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge

Carla Rachel Sameth has a voice textured with strength and longing, grief and humor, wisdom and resilience. These poems tell of loneliness and lossof human contact and touch, and of communitybut also of an unwillingness to give in and give up. Sameths inventiveness and wit are fully present in this collection, along with the depth she always brings to her work. These poems are not like pills to be taken in doses but more like rich and aromatic cups of coffee to savor and relish, wishing there were more.

Shuly Xchitl Cawood, author ofTrouble Can Be So Beautiful at the Beginning

The feel, focus and flavor ofWhat Is Leftbears fruit familiar and fresh. Face frontiers fueled with foresight that flower form and function. Flames flirt and flail. Familiar furlough fools. Foundation frames future.

Gerda Govine Ituarte, author ofFuture Awakes in Mouth of NOW

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Carla Sameths chapbook, What Is Left comes out December 7, 2021 with dancing girl press. Her debut memoir, One Day on the Gold Line, originally published in 2019, will be reissued by Golden Foothills Press in 2022. Her writing on blended/unblended, queer, multi-racial and single parent families appears in a variety of literary journals and anthologies. Carlas work has been twice named as Notable Essays of the Year in Best American Essays. A Pasadena Rose Poet, a West Hollywood Pride Poet, and a former PEN Teaching Artist, Carla teaches creative writing to high school and university students and has taught incarcerated youth. She lives in Pasadena with her beloved partner, Milo. https://carlasameth.com/

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Unspooled

Sometimes I feel as if Im undone,
a big spool of yarn
rolling down a steep hill and out into the street,
down the garbage-gathered drain.

Other times, Im standing in front of Ramons
apartment building in DF. Remember
when I broke that bottle of Tequila Herradura.
It shattered in big shards and little slivers.
Hjole, y fue uno de los buenos!
the doorman lamented watching the smooth
white liquid spill onto the sidewalk. Lost.
I wonder would they say that about me
as I fall and crash to smithereens?

I want to laugh out loud when I see
Im as solid as a snow cone.
As if I could be slurped up, tossed out or simply meltaway
As if I could be a sweetness craved, a crying childs
dream on steaming summer days.

Prescription: Wrap arms tightly
around chest, imagine freshly baked challah,
imagine a Friday night when you allow
yourself to rest your shredded senses,
and put on that white lace Brazilian dress.
Do not think of shards;
think instead of strong vigas, high
ceilings, an unobstructed view
of the Big Dipper, Leonard Cohen
carrying your darkness in his secret chords.
Sing Hallelujah.
Sing Hineni,
I am here.