The Lust of Unsentimental Waters

by Rosa Alcalá

Poetry. Latino/Latina Studies. "Rosa Alcalá's poems dwell in the liminal space between the personal and the political—poems built on the idea that 'the world exists,' and that work to define the metaphysical and ephemeral architectures of origin, migration, nationalism, and loss. Rosa Alcalá is uncompromising, wry, and all of the qualities that significant poetic works of cultural criticism require."—Carmen Giménez Smith

"'I want to know how everything changes with the price of admission,' writes Rosa Alcalá in her extraordinary new book. These poems begin at the exact point where 'the fundamental concepts of elementary navigation / become unhinged,' as they invent a new way of developing tenuous and affectionate convergences between desire and fear, love and anger—even sex, money, tradition, and the history of appearances. It's all here. What fascinates Alcalá is precisely what animates her 'the mess of lost power,' compelled at once by contradiction and complicity, yet cleaving with an unsentimental eye and an inspiring wit."—Joshua Marie Wilkinson

Genres: Poetry

100 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2012

Reviews

[Andy Stallings · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping for more from this book. I've found Alcala's translation work interesting, and also her poetry in other contexts. The poems in this collection are not bad, but also are not memorable. They fit, for me, in the line of post-Objectivist poetry, which is often disappointing for lacking the rigor and insight of the model. Not everything here is spare, but much of it is half thoughts occupying whole pages. Not enough for me to return to, except perhaps single poems, except none stood out as those single poems I'd return for.