A lot of Writers spend their entire life trying to find their own voice. Their own thing… That special something that lets you know it’s them. Reading the words of Susana Praver-Pérez lets you know she’s found it & it’s growing! You are immediately pulled inside her Poetry. Her words take you deep into her literary World. So deep you can almost taste the sweat & feel the tears on the faces left homeless after Hurricane Maria. Empty, ravaged Houses will sing their pain to you!!! And you will live the love & rage, the heartbreak, passion, and you will understand betrayal. You will also have a front row seat to the unbreakable pride & strength in the knowledge of inevitable rebirth throughout the pages of this book!
Enjoy the journey & tell the World!
– Avotcja, writer and musician
Opulent in its imagery, this poetry collection is a love letter to not just the Caribbean and Puerto Rico but to survival itself. Susana Praver-Pérez blends heritage and history, English and Spanish, truth and triumph with a skill that astonishes. Susana’s pen is like a harnessed hurricane that lays flat ignorance and preconceptions as she eloquently voices the intimate dignity and bravery of the true Caribe.
– elijah b pringle, III, Poetry Editor for ToHo Journal, board member at Moonstone Art Center, Philadelphia
As a home builder, I know that without a sturdy foundation a house will not stand. The same is true for a poem—and these poems are well designed. Their foundations are dug deeply into the soil of social justice and lyrical language. And without a sound roof, a house will fall into decay. As this collection speaks of the stresses and traumas that are thrust upon people, both natural and societal, these poems create shelter with a canopy of empathy—and celebrate the worth of every individual.
– Bob Praver, retired builder, writer of history, proud father of the poet
In this collection of poems Susana Praver-Perez bridges the intimate relationships among culture, society and nature to expose what is broken, damaged and diseased in our lives. But her poems also reveal the healing and repair needed to become whole in a fractured world. Forces of nature figure prominently in her vibrant imagery but so do the everyday struggles of people seeking refuge from exterior and interior — natural and unnatural disasters. Her intense and poignant observations are woven into a textured understanding of injustice, the social and sexual body and the yearning for the restoration of human dignity and tenderness.
– Naomi H. Quiñonez, poet and PhD Cultural Studies
Heart wrenching and heart mending – from raised fist shout outs, to the mourning “wail of 4,000 dead,” to the impotence of witness and the reverberation of trauma left in “Yemaya’s blue wake” when “backs were turned and doors locked tight” – this collection unveils the contradictions of paradise, the disillusion of “streets of gold,” the power plays between partners, and the exquisite agony of survival as mujer, as nation, as brave border crossers, aquí y allá, in “Borinquen” y “Afuera” recovering, designing, aligning – land, ocean, species – in response to injustice “unmasked, brought into full focus.” From the call of boleros, plena, y bomba to the response of Titi Sara’s hips and arroz con gandules, Susana’s homenajes are intimate and porous like a rainforest canopy, a soundtrack of dignity, vibrating with ancestral echoes, recetas, y “herencias,” painting a road map ever pa’lante, como un elefante. These verses are tall stubborn ceiba trees, rooted, resistant, resilient, a refuge in full regalia adorned in defiance at the center of the tempest that colonialism, racism and patriarchy have whipped across the landscape for centuries. These love songs remind the reader that from the escombros, we dig out, we march, under the full moon “on a mission,” with “sacred rage and indignant love,” with “mother-prayers upon my lips,” we rebuild with sass, with swing, with poetry. Our collective beauty is our unity, our grace and guiding star, as we navigate a daily path elevating and amplifying our stories, con sabrosura, in the spirit and syncopated lyrics of the late great Ray Barreto, de raíces aguadillanos, “Ay, unidos venceremos y yo sé que llegaremos, con sangre nueva, ¡indestructible!”
– Sandra García Rivera, Poet, Musician, and Host, Lunada Literary Lounge & Open Mic, SF, 2010–2018
