Overview
A collection by award-winning poet Kimberly Reyes that explores erased histories. Through her latest collection, Kimberly Reyes navigates the physical, hereditary, and liminal worlds between land, time, and memory. The poems in vanishing point take us to San Francisco, Ireland, and the Atlantic Ocean, reclaiming and examining contested space as the poet seeks to revive left-behind histories, reconsider what we see, and reveal what we cannot see.
Reviews
"""An unflinching collection of poems from a bold literary voice."" * Kirkus * ""This intelligent exploration intertwines intimacy and testimony. Drawing on visual works from the public domain and embedding QR codes linking to Reyes’s film poems, hybridity is at the core of this collection."" * Harriet Books * ""Spanning New York, Puerto Rico, Ireland, and beyond, Black Nuyorican poet Reyes brings together census records, FBI sketches, and QR codes to the author’s poetry films into a meditation on the limits of visibility."" * The Latinx Project * “Reyes insists that we remember the histories and identities erased by the work of empire and patriarchy. Traversing continents, oceans, and historical eras, Reyes utilizes archive, video poems, séance, and an unrelenting lens that refuses ‘a cozy invisibility.’ This collection affirms the need to preserve histories on the precipice of being consumed and forgotten. Through the visual use of gradient text, Reyes amplifies and conjures what is at risk of being sent into the silence of white noise. Be it in California, Ireland, Puerto Rico, or popular culture, Reyes calls our attention to the ‘ivory-stroked / false purity—’ and the ‘misappropriation // of American gothic / how blackness sits / unbound // darkest places unimaged.’ Amid all the weight, there is a tender cradling of the lyric that re-animates a sense of home and a refusal to be displaced: ‘we are still / we are memory.’ Vanishing point is rich in language and it is a gift to follow Reyes as she delves into what must be known and what must be spoken to sculpt and imagine a new cartography.” -- Anthony Cody, author of The Rendering “Vanishing point suggests a disappearance, and the print does occasionally fade from black to gray, yet the poems in this book present a vivid original presence by means of adroit language, strong emotion, imaginative leaps. It is a unique work, wide-ranging, heart-rending—attuned to the multiple forms of who one is, black and certainly blue. But also multiple and nuanced in the twists and turns of lines, sound, spacing, vocabulary—a complexity that is can’t help but rattle and move the reader. The poems are wonderfully attentive to rhythm, even as they include QR codes, documents, quotations, and the words of others, for example, Fred Moten, The Talking Heads, Kara Walker, Richard Wright, Sinéad O’Connor, those echoed words in gray. Vanishing point raises the significant questions of where one belongs and who one is, but it is also a book of tenderness and compassion for the larger world where destruction exists in history, around every corner, for those who pick grapes, for black women, for race horses, for birds.” -- Martha Ronk, author of The Place One Is “Kimberly Reyes has written an innovative and magnetic book. Each poem spirals beautifully by itself but when I finished reading, I realized I had encountered and entered new architecture. Here, thinking radiates to illuminate the ‘absorbing ghosts’ of the self and the familial and the ‘living shadows’ of oppressive historical forces. Here, the language is lyrical, layered, and spectral. Here, the ‘hyphen is a rejection of negative space.’ Reyes is an astonishingly gifted poet and this book enlarges and complicates what the page can hold back, reveal.” -- Eduardo Corral, author of Guillotine ""Kimberly Reyes' latest collection vanishing point. contains hauntings within the text, echoes in the graphics. There are diagrams and QR codes, landscape and demographics that impress upon readers the emptiness from missing—that map of dispossessions, the collapse of stars—and the fullness of looking, of looking closer. Here, people faced with survival keep looking back and up and through disaster to ask: Who are the living? or: What does it feel like? and: Is this pleasure? This is a thoughtful, serious exploration of expirations and hollows, stains and swells, the soil salted over blood, flame, memory."" -- Ladan Osman, author of Exiles of Eden ""vanishing point. ranges effortlessly over epochs, oceans, continents, casting a wryly compassionate, implacable eye on North America, Southern Ireland, and the complex histories that bind them. It consolidates one of the freshest, most searching voices on either side of the Atlantic."" -- Billy Ramsell, author of The Architect’s Dream of Winter"
"“Reyes insists that we remember the histories and identities erased by the work of empire and patriarchy. Traversing continents, oceans, and historical eras, Reyes utilizes archive, video poems, séance, and an unrelenting lens that refuses ‘a cozy invisibility.’ This collection affirms the need to preserve histories on the precipice of being consumed and forgotten. Through the visual use of gradient text, Reyes amplifies and conjures what is at risk of being sent into the silence of white noise. Be it in California, Ireland, Puerto Rico, or popular culture, Reyes calls our attention to the ‘ivory-stroked / false purity—’ and the ‘misappropriation // of American gothic / how blackness sits / unbound // darkest places unimaged.’ Amid all the weight, there is a tender cradling of the lyric that re-animates a sense of home and a refusal to be displaced: ‘we are still / we are memory.’ Vanishing point is rich in language and it is a gift to follow Reyes as she delves into what must be known and what must be spoken to sculpt and imagine a new cartography.” -- Anthony Cody, author of The Rendering “Vanishing point suggests a disappearance, and the print does occasionally fade from black to gray, yet the poems in this book present a vivid original presence by means of adroit language, strong emotion, imaginative leaps. It is a unique work, wide-ranging, heart-rending—attuned to the multiple forms of who one is, black and certainly blue. But also multiple and nuanced in the twists and turns of lines, sound, spacing, vocabulary—a complexity that is can’t help but rattle and move the reader. The poems are wonderfully attentive to rhythm, even as they include QR codes, documents, quotations, and the words of others, for example, Fred Moten, The Talking Heads, Kara Walker, Richard Wright, Sinéad O’Connor, those echoed words in gray. Vanishing point raises the significant questions of where one belongs and who one is, but it is also a book of tenderness and compassion for the larger world where destruction exists in history, around every corner, for those who pick grapes, for black women, for race horses, for birds.” -- Martha Ronk, author of The Place One Is “Kimberly Reyes has written an innovative and magnetic book. Each poem spirals beautifully by itself but when I finished reading, I realized I had encountered and entered new architecture. Here, thinking radiates to illuminate the ‘absorbing ghosts’ of the self and the familial and the ‘living shadows’ of oppressive historical forces. Here, the language is lyrical, layered, and spectral. Here, the ‘hyphen is a rejection of negative space.’ Reyes is an astonishingly gifted poet and this book enlarges and complicates what the page can hold back, reveal.” -- Eduardo Corral, author of Guillotine ""Kimberly Reyes' latest collection vanishing point. contains hauntings within the text, echoes in the graphics. There are diagrams and QR codes, landscape and demographics that impress upon readers the emptiness from missing—that map of dispossessions, the collapse of stars—and the fullness of looking, of looking closer. Here, people faced with survival keep looking back and up and through disaster to ask: Who are the living? or: What does it feel like? and: Is this pleasure? This is a thoughtful, serious exploration of expirations and hollows, stains and swells, the soil salted over blood, flame, memory."" -- Ladan Osman, author of Exiles of Eden ""vanishing point. ranges effortlessly over epochs, oceans, continents, casting a wryly compassionate, implacable eye on North America, Southern Ireland, and the complex histories that bind them. It consolidates one of the freshest, most searching voices on either side of the Atlantic."" -- Billy Ramsell, author of The Architect’s Dream of Winter"
Kimberly Reyes has written an innovative and magnetic book. Each poem spirals beautifully by itself but when I finished reading, I realized I had encountered and entered new architecture. Here, thinking radiates to illuminate the 'absorbing ghosts' of the self and the familial and the 'living shadows' of oppressive historical forces. Here, the language is lyrical, layered, and spectral. Here, the 'hyphen is a rejection of negative space.' Reyes is an astonishingly gifted poet and this book enlarges and complicates what the page can hold back, reveal. --Eduardo Corral, author of Guillotine Vanishing point suggests a disappearance, and the print does occasionally fade from black to gray, yet the poems in this book present a vivid original presence by means of adroit language, strong emotion, imaginative leaps. It is a unique work, wide-ranging, heart-rending--attuned to the multiple forms of who one is, black and certainly blue. But also multiple and nuanced in the twists and turns of lines, sound, spacing, vocabulary--a complexity that is can't help but rattle and move the reader. The poems are wonderfully attentive to rhythm, even as they include QR codes, documents, quotations, and the words of others, for example, Fred Moten, The Talking Heads, Kara Walker, Richard Wright, Sinead O'Connor, those echoed words in gray. Vanishing point raises the significant questions of where one belongs and who one is, but it is also a book of tenderness and compassion for the larger world where destruction exists in history, around every corner, for those who pick grapes, for black women, for race horses, for birds. --Martha Ronk, author of The Place One Is Kimberly Reyes' latest collection vanishing point. contains hauntings within the text, echoes in the graphics. There are diagrams and QR codes, landscape and demographics that impress upon readers the emptiness from missing--that map of dispossessions, the collapse of stars--and the fullness of looking, of looking closer. Here, people faced with survival keep looking back and up and through disaster to ask: Who are the living? or: What does it feel like? and: Is this pleasure? This is a thoughtful, serious exploration of expirations and hollows, stains and swells, the soil salted over blood, flame, memory. --Ladan Osman, author of Exiles of Eden Reyes insists that we remember the histories and identities erased by the work of empire and patriarchy. Traversing continents, oceans, and historical eras, Reyes utilizes archive, video poems, seance, and an unrelenting lens that refuses 'a cozy invisibility.' This collection affirms the need to preserve histories on the precipice of being consumed and forgotten. Through the visual use of gradient text, Reyes amplifies and conjures what is at risk of being sent into the silence of white noise. Be it in California, Ireland, Puerto Rico, or popular culture, Reyes calls our attention to the 'ivory-stroked / false purity--' and the 'misappropriation // of American gothic / how blackness sits / unbound // darkest places unimaged.' Amid all the weight, there is a tender cradling of the lyric that re-animates a sense of home and a refusal to be displaced: 'we are still / we are memory.' Vanishing point is rich in language and it is a gift to follow Reyes as she delves into what must be known and what must be spoken to sculpt and imagine a new cartography. --Anthony Cody, author of The Rendering
Reyes insists that we remember the histories and identities erased by the work of empire and patriarchy. Traversing continents, oceans, and historical eras, Reyes utilizes archive, video poems, seance, and an unrelenting lens that refuses 'a cozy invisibility.' This collection affirms the need to preserve histories on the precipice of being consumed and forgotten. Through the visual use of gradient text, Reyes amplifies and conjures what is at risk of being sent into the silence of white noise. Be it in California, Ireland, Puerto Rico, or popular culture, Reyes calls our attention to the 'ivory-stroked / false purity-' and the 'misappropriation // of American gothic / how blackness sits / unbound // darkest places unimaged.' Amid all the weight, there is a tender cradling of the lyric that re-animates a sense of home and a refusal to be displaced: 'we are still / we are memory.' Vanishing point is rich in language and it is a gift to follow Reyes as she delves into what must be known and what must be spoken to sculpt and imagine a new cartography. -- Anthony Cody, author of The Rendering Vanishing point suggests a disappearance, and the print does occasionally fade from black to gray, yet the poems in this book present a vivid original presence by means of adroit language, strong emotion, imaginative leaps. It is a unique work, wide-ranging, heart-rending-attuned to the multiple forms of who one is, black and certainly blue. But also multiple and nuanced in the twists and turns of lines, sound, spacing, vocabulary-a complexity that is can't help but rattle and move the reader. The poems are wonderfully attentive to rhythm, even as they include QR codes, documents, quotations, and the words of others, for example, Fred Moten, The Talking Heads, Kara Walker, Richard Wright, Sinead O'Connor, those echoed words in gray. Vanishing point raises the significant questions of where one belongs and who one is, but it is also a book of tenderness and compassion for the larger world where destruction exists in history, around every corner, for those who pick grapes, for black women, for race horses, for birds. -- Martha Ronk, author of The Place One Is Kimberly Reyes has written an innovative and magnetic book. Each poem spirals beautifully by itself but when I finished reading, I realized I had encountered and entered new architecture. Here, thinking radiates to illuminate the 'absorbing ghosts' of the self and the familial and the 'living shadows' of oppressive historical forces. Here, the language is lyrical, layered, and spectral. Here, the 'hyphen is a rejection of negative space.' Reyes is an astonishingly gifted poet and this book enlarges and complicates what the page can hold back, reveal. -- Eduardo Corral, author of Guillotine Kimberly Reyes' latest collection vanishing point. contains hauntings within the text, echoes in the graphics. There are diagrams and QR codes, landscape and demographics that impress upon readers the emptiness from missing-that map of dispossessions, the collapse of stars-and the fullness of looking, of looking closer. Here, people faced with survival keep looking back and up and through disaster to ask: Who are the living? or: What does it feel like? and: Is this pleasure? This is a thoughtful, serious exploration of expirations and hollows, stains and swells, the soil salted over blood, flame, memory. -- Ladan Osman, author of Exiles of Eden
Author Information
Kimberly Reyes is a poet, essayist, and the author of the poetry collections vanishing point. and Running to Stand Still. Her book of essays Life During Wartime won the 2018 Michael Rubin Book Award. Her work has been published in various outlets including the Atlantic, New York Times, Associated Press, Entertainment Weekly, Village Voice, ESPN the Magazine, Film Ireland, Poetry Review, Poetry London, Poetry Ireland, and Best American Poetry Blog. A doctoral student in creative writing at the University of Nebraska, Kimberly spends her time between New York City and Lincoln.
