Santa Tarantula

Jordan Pérez works professionally in online safety and childhood sexual abuse prevention. She has an MFA in creative writing from American University and has published poetry in Cutthroat, Poetry International, Mississippi Review, and more.

"Jordan B. Pérez' Santa Tarantula considers the devastating traces of gendered violence and intergenerational trauma, grief and pain, passed on from the state's abuse, to the family, to the child's body. But the girl at the center of these poems is no victim crushed into oblivion. She transfigures by her own alchemy. Pérez' poems remind us there is always life, connection, and pleasure to be made anew." —Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes, author of The Inheritance of Haunting"In Jordan Pérez's magnetic debut, foundational narratives—religious, girlhood—crash into each other, strike sparks that illuminate violence and tenderness. What shapes us, what disfigures us, in these poems, is yoked together with a startling imagination and language that's precise and resonant. A memorable and powerful collection." —Eduardo C. Corral, author of Guillotine"Jordan Pérez lends scientific, lyrical attention to the deepest wounds within families and sexes. This fearless, economical writing haunts from the start, excavates and sings of pain and persistence." —Sheila Maldonado, co-judge, author of that's what you get"Jordan Perez's hard-driving debut finds solidarity with those run through the meat grinder of heteropatriarchy—its particular pockets and violences—and those who lifted a sabotaging instrument—or their mere selves—against that machinery. Lyrical and loud, if one were to call this book 'unflinching,' I would ask, incredulously, how they ever expected a speaker such as this to flinch." —Kyle Dargan, Books Editor for Wondaland Arts Society

• Part 1. SmallmouthSmallmouthTwelveYour Father Knew Many WomenThe Masculinity CampsDeadgirlKnockout RoseIn This StoryBodyThe MenMixed-Up SestinaTamarMen Everywhere Are Setting TrapsA Desolate WomanThe Glory Has DepartedLetter to My Grandfather in AprilLot's DaughterPart 2. DissentO God of CubaDissentSanta TarantulaBecoming WildDelilahThe DreamGomerI Consider ViolenceJaelWantingNew Study Say Men Who Do Dishes Are Less Likely to Kill YouBathymetryHow to Be the Other WomanThe Woman with Wounded HandsChicken HeartCrossingMisplacedPart 3. GospelGenesisI Was Named for the River of BlessingsUpendedPilgrimageAsymptoteTheodore Roosevelt IslandHerding Tent CaterpillarsRejoiceThis Is What the Girl Really WantsThings to Cling ToLiturgyThe Gospel According to the GirlAcknowledgements