Everything is Returned to the Soil/ Todo Vuelve a la Tierra. By Briana Muñoz

Briana’s Everything is Returned to the Soil lets the conviction of her dreams,  fantasies, heartaches, darkness, prayers and experiences mirror the human side of  all of us, her Poetry paints the ancestry and pain of society.— Juan Cardenas, Executive Director of Los Angeles Poet Society, Teacher with California Poets in the Schools, and  author of The Beat of an Immigrant Chicano 

Briana Muñoz’s book, Everything is Returned to the Soil/ Todo Vuelve a la Tierra,  is a collection of poetry that documents heartache like only a well-tongued Poet can. The  extremities of mind, body, and spirit, are all fed through the grinder, smoothed out, and  laminated for us to see. You can feel it in Briana’s poems, and recollections of love, that pierce like an unwanted  thorn between the eyes. Her sensual language shows us how fierce the exchange of love can  be and how the scars belong like bandages. If you exorcise away the torment of thoughts,  songs, clothes, scents, and the hard-on memories of once love – this book will take place of the  razor over your arm, and toast you with a double shot, and a finger to your ex-lover. Jump into this book and empower yourself away from the drunk-dial, sloppy text,  or lonesome one-nighters. Muñoz’s book is medicine for the freshly wounded. It is  also a beautiful homage to ancestry, madre tierra, and the freest feminine spirit!  Briana writes with such strength, and honors her lineage with her breath, blood, and  ink. Poems like Elvira, which is an intimate vignette of grandmother to granddaughter  exchanges, and an undertone of resentment for the impact of the patriarchy and  colonization that white wash our families, painting over our cultura. Poems like, For  my Mother, a life of the party woman, has such strong spirit, and Ancestral Wounds  could be its own manifesto as she takes us on a journey to decolonize her past. Briana  is unafraid to speak, unafraid to shed saliva, and unafraid to use her tongue.”—Jessica M. Wilson, MFA, Founder of Los Angeles Poet Society,  Poet, Activist, Educator

Briana Muñoz’s poetry wants to jump off the pages and dance. All sorts of dances —  from traditional ceremonial Danza to dirty dancing. She has no problem juxtaposing  sin with the sacred. And should she? Life is all of it. This book is a journey, a look into  the depths of want with no disclaimers. Of people living ordinary lives and striving  for the best lives they can get. We travel LA streets, visit its iconic neighborhoods and  landmarks, go to the southern border with Mexico, even to La Habana. Throughout  all of it, there is a profound reverence for ancestors and what they have to teach us as  Indigenous peoples. At the same time, there’s a fearless look at the complexities of women  who are willing to be exactly who they choose to be. Cultural and societal shackles be  damned. I was lucky to curate Briana’s first book Loose Lips which I thought was  bold, raw, and beautiful. Everything is Returned to the Soil is more of the same  powerful poetry, only with more punch and more conviction. ¡Ajuua y Adelante!”—Odilia Galván Rodríguez, author of The Color of Light: Poems for the Mexica and Orisha Energies 

Briana Muñoz’s poetry confronts social injustices while proving that emotional  vulnerability is a requisite for true strength, rather than a hinderance. There is a  quiet tenderness in her words as she examines the everyday moment, or reflects on  her identity, that contrasts with a building tension of inner conflict and acceptance  that explodes on the page in a rush of beauty. This collection warrants multiple  reads to experience the complexity that lies beneath the layers of meaning.”—Zachary Jensen, Poet, Writer, Translator, and Editor 

Briana Muñoz is a writer from Southern California. Raised in San Diego, she spent a lot of her time at her mother’s Mexican folklore dance classes and at ranches where her father trained horses into the sunset. She is the author of Loose Lips, a poetry collection published by Prickly Pear Publishing (2019). Her work has been published in the Bravura Literary Journal, LA BLOGA, the oldest Chicana Chicano Literature blog in history, the Poets Responding page, and in the Oakland Arts Review, among others. In the 2016 publication of the Bravura, she was awarded the second-place fiction prize. Her poem “Rebirth” was featured in the Reproductive Health edition of the St. Sucia zine. Briana’s work was one of ten chosen for The Best of LA BLOGA from 2015. When she isn't typing away, she enjoys Danza Azteca, live music, cats, and thrift shopping.