FirstPoems: ani’mal, INDíGENA, and furia by ire’ne lara silva (October 1, 2021)
In an unprecedented collection, FirstPoems: ani’mal, INDíGENA, and furia brings together all of ire’ne lara silva’s poems published between 1994 and 2010. ani’mal, focusing on love and desire, and INDíGENA, focusing on identity and culture, were two chapbooks self-published by the author in 2001. furia is silva’s first full-length collection, first published by Mouthfeel Press in 2010. About furia, Carmen Tafolla said, “furia is a fastpaced fury of pain and protest, grief and truth, a mad excursion into the howling depths of that which makes us human, able to hate or love or speak…. this collection is an exciting blend of styles—from the experimental litanies of words which echo, wrestle, and court each other, to the epic eloquence of works–Even in the darkest of depictions, the reader is drawn in, fed with the rawness and the reality of the emotion, fed with the power of truth.”
ire’ne lara silva is the author of three poetry collections, furia, Blood Sugar Canto, and CUICACALLI/House of Song, an e-chapbook, Enduring Azucares, and a short story collection, flesh to bone, which won the Premio Aztlán. She and poet Dan Vera are also the co-editors of Imaniman: Poets Writing in the Anzaldúan Borderlands, a collection of poetry and essays. ire’ne is the recipient of a 2017 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant, the final recipient of the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, and was the Fiction Finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award. Most recently, ire’ne was awarded the 2021 Texas Institute of Letters Shrake Award for Best Short Nonfiction. ire’ne is currently working on her first novel, Naci, and a second collection of short stories titled, the light of your body.