Cynthia Cruz - Böcker

Poetry that centers its movement on repetition—orbiting, unwinding, and returning.  Integrating Lacanian and Freudian psychoanalysis, continental philosophy, and the works of other poets, this collection explores narrative through abstraction and considers how repetition holds both the power to constrain and to generate. Freud explains how what we repress—what we know but don’t want to acknowledge—reappears in our actions through repetition. Through slips of the tongue or selective memory, we engage with what our unconscious knows, finding knowledge through unknowing. The psychoanalytic session is centered on bringing forth repressed knowledge through acts of unknowing—speaking without thinking—which brings one closer to recognizing an obscured desire.  The poetry of Sweet Repetition works in ways akin to the psychoanalytic act. These pulsing poems follow the definitions of the word revolution—to revolve, change direction, unroll, unwind, happen again, repeat, orbit around. Images and words reappear in the motion of Cynthia Cruz’s poems, inviting us into their revolutionary, political, and cumulative effects.

Latina poets occupy an important place in today's literary landscape. Coming from diverse backgrounds, they share an understanding of what it means to exist within the margins of society. As artists, they possess a dedication to their craft and a commitment to experimentation. Their voices - sometimes lyrical, sometimes autobiographical, sometimes politically charged - are distinctly female. Whereas previous anthologies have merged the works of Latino and Latina poets, this collection is the first to showcase Latina poetry on its own terms.For years readers have admired the poetry of prominent Latina authors Cherríe Moraga, Ana Castillo, and Sandra Cisneros. Building on their inspirational legacy, Other Musics heralds a new generation of Latina poets whose work blends traditional forms and styles with postmodern innovations. These poets do not fit neatly into one category. They come from all walks of life, from remarkably varied class, ethnic, occupational, and educational backgrounds. Their topics and concerns are wide-ranging. All of the poets, according to volume editor Cynthia Cruz, are creating ""a new kind of music,"" one that embraces the ""in-between"" and bicultural world that Latina women must constantly straddle.The fifteen poets featured in this anthology are Desirée Alvarez, Karen Bradway, Xochiquetzal Candelaria, Diana Maria Delgado, Natalie Diaz, Carolina Ebeid, Sandy Florian, Carrie Fountain, Leticia Hernández-Linares, Ada Limón, Sheryl Luna, Kristin Naca, Deborah Paredez, Emmy Pérez, and Carmen Giménez Smith. Along with an ample selection of each of their poetry, Other Musics features an artist statement by each poet, in which she discusses her work, her writing practice, how she became a writer, and her views on the purpose and mission of poetry in the contemporary world.

To be working-class in a middle-class world is to be a ghost. Excluded, marginalised, and subjected to violence, the working class is also deemed by those in power to not exist. We are left with a choice between assimilation into middle-class values and culture, leaving our working-class origins behind, or total annihilation.In The Melancholia of Class, Cynthia Cruz analyses how this choice between assimilation or annihilation has played out in the lives of working-class musicians, artists, writers, and filmmakers — including Amy Winehouse, Ian Curtis, Jason Molina, Barbara Loden, and many more — and the resultant Freudian melancholia that ensues when the working-class subject leaves their origins to “become someone,” only to find that they lose themselves in the process.Part memoir, part cultural theory, and part polemic, The Melancholia of Class shows us how we can resist assimilation, uplifting and carrying our working-class origins and communities with us, as we break the barriers of the middle-class world. There are so many of us, all of us waiting. If we came together, who knows what we could do.