The Best Prey

by Paige Quiñones

Paige Quiñones’s incisive debut poetry collection investigates the trauma of desire. Quiñones’s lyric world is populated with stark dualities: procreation and childlessness, predator and prey, mania and depression. A hunter pursues an ill-fated fox through the woods; heaven is paved with girls who would rather drown than be born; a couple returns from their honeymoon to find a stagnant pond in their marriage bed. Through navigating these duplicities, Quiñones arrives at a version of femininity that is at once fierce and crystalline, and unmistakably her own. She writes, “My reflection can only growl back, in water or oil-slick or silver. This is an exercise in forgiveness. I dip my feet in.” The Best Prey charts the complexity of hunger in vivid, visceral terms, and ultimately arrives at a sense of self that encompasses the contradictions of sensuality, violence, and power.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published February 15, 2021

Reviews

[Crystal Odelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Crushing” best describes the weight of these poems, full of femme power, indomitable desire, and horrific beauty. This might sound trite, but I’ve never read more imaginative poetry, full of fearless leaps to original metaphors as refreshing as they are emotive. Quiñones wields tremendous magic, and her poems consistently resonate with a feeling I’d thought was indescribable—when joy or freedom becomes something like a synonym for oblivion. Thank you for making me feel less alone.