Overview

Winner of the 2025 International Latino Book Award Long-listed for the Maya Angelou Book Award Deemed one of the ""Best Books for Adults 2024"" by the New York Public Library Volcanic eruptions and waves collide in Yaccaira Salvatierra's explosive debut collection Sons of Saltwhich explores the duality of personal and political landscapes as well as legacies of violence within Mexican-American communities. Sons of Salt poignantly captures the experiences of mothers who battle for their sons' wellbeing, particularly when fathers are absent due to systemic oppressions. Salvatierra's verse breaks the bones of poetic form to bring attention to the failures of aconceptually westernGod who has categorically failed to protect His children, and gives birth instead to a god of nature. Weaving self-made mythology, mourning, and maternal fear into visual and narrative poems, Salvatierra creates a collection that probes the deepest hurt to ensure the holiest redemption.

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9781960145604

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Reviews

""Sons of Salt holds the memories of water and of fire--those forces in ourselves and the world that are best at transformation. These poems contend with the tensions of form and formlessness, place and displacement, generations of family and regeneration. They keep dreaming their way back to the lessons we learned about ourselves and each other in the shadows of home."" -- Traci Brimhall, Poet Laureate of Kansas ""Sons of Salt offers indelible proof that whatever breaks--even familial bonds, even the heart--can be pieced together again. Love is imperfect, fragile, but never ever lost. Yaccaira Salvatierra's poems are inventive, dazzling, and achingly beautiful!"" -- Rigoberto González, author of The Book of Ruin ""A mythical interpretation of motherhood, selfhood, and the chimeric profundity of their meeting point. There isn't another book like this that explores the complexities and fears of loving a son."" -- Phillip B. Williams, author of Mutiny

Author Information

Born in Los ngeles, California, Yaccaira Salvatierra is a poet, translator, and educator for over 20 years while raising her two sons as single parent. She received the Dorrit Sibley Award for Poetry, and the Puerto del Sol Poetry Prize. She was awarded the Lucille Clifton Memorial Scholarship, scholarships for the Napa Valley Writers' Conference, Bread Loaf Translator's Conference, and Macondo. She is an organizer for the San Francisco International Flor y Canto Literary Festival and lives in Oakland, CA, where she teachers literacy and poetry to youth.

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