Join us for an evening of poetry and conversation as local writer Victoria Buitron celebrates the launch of her debut collection, Unburying the Bones, winner of the inaugural VersoFrontera Prize.
Victoria will be joined by fellow writers Chelsea Dodds, Christine Kandic-Torres, and Katie Schneider, the Norwalk Poet Laureate, for an afternoon of readings. Come celebrate the release of Unburying the Bones and connect with the vibrant local literary community. Free and open to the public.
Light refreshments will be available.
In her debut poetry collection, Unburying the Bones, Victoria Buitron dresses untamed desire with the body of a broken marriage, gives it hair, sex, and crowns it with childlessness, all this as a quiet, lyrical rage traces the history of the everyday violence bruising the lives of countless women. She asks: “How can I heal if my mother only taught me to reside in the place between praying and wishing?” And it is precisely this “place between praying and wishing” that Buitron sets on fire, this place of false security, false comfort, false patriarchal narrative. By the light of this fire, these poems call us to birth a “new skin” and to love ourselves again “when no one sees.” Read these poems and bear witness to the courageous act of reclaiming one’s life.
—Octavio Quintanilla, Series Editor, VersoFrontera Poetry Series & author of The Book of Wounded Sparrows (Texas Review Press) & Las Horas Imposibles / The Impossible Hours (University of Arizona Press).
When a mother bear asked, How do you do it?… Live with Men, Victoria Buitron’s bearing reply is a manifesto of poesy that unveils her quest to recapture the unquiet of womanhood, every man must read. Unburying the Bones is an excavation of matriarchy digging to rediscover the sacrosanct of self. The collection disentangles the complexities of patriarchy, sexuality, marriage and esteem to unfurl (while inhaling the dulcet of palo santo) that healing is like roots from a tree seeking out water. Who amongst us doesn’t need water?
—Frederick-Douglass Knowles II, Hartford Poet Laureate Emeritus and author of Sinking in Moonlight Alone
