Lessons on Expulsion

In this debut collection, Sánchez (winner of the Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Contest and a fellowship from the Poetry Foundation) describes what it's like to be a child of immigrants, and, too often, a woman jeered at by men. Sometimes harsh, though always vibrant and superbly written, the poems chronicle what it's like to travel and live in Mexico, the United States, and Europe. The pieces recount events some would prefer to avoid; for instance, the brutal 2014 massacre of Mexican students and the 1616 Tepehuán revolt. Sánchez is also not afraid to catalog the ugly and scarred: semen, spit, mouse shit, and dead fetuses all make appearances. But how she captures the world of the senses: "Watch how I shield/ my ears from the tiny blades// of the cricket song,/ but I still love// the way the evening rages on." Written in English, with occasional Spanish phrases, this collection offers an exploration of what it is to live, love, and suffer on this Earth: "Guerra a fuego y sangre: where the bones clatter// from the sapodilla trees."