This month we are celebrating the titles that we’ve acquired over the past twelve months. Some of them, like the one we’re pleased to present today, came to us by way of Nomadic Press. Read more about our plans to welcome Nomadic Press titles to Black Lawrence Press here. Today we bring you Susana Praver-Pérez, whose forthcoming book Return Against the Flow will be published in early 2024.
Have a manuscript you think we’d like? During our June Open Reading Period we are looking for poetry (chapbooks and full-length collections), short fiction (again, both chapbooks and full-length collections), novels, novellas, nonfiction (CNF, biography, cultural studies), anthology proposals, and translations from German.
The Author
Susana Praver-Pérez is a Pushcart-nominated poet and a winner of the San Francisco/Nomadic Press Literary Award (2021). Susana’s first full-length collection of poetry, Hurricanes, Love Affairs, and Other Disasters was published by Nomadic Press in 2021 and won the 2022 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award. Susana divides her time between Oakland, California and San Juan, Puerto Rico and writes through the lens formed in the liminal space between languages, cultures, and geographies.
On Writing Return Against the Flow
For 28 years, my late husband José de Jesús Pérez and I dreamed of moving to Puerto Rico, the island of his birth. But the joys and struggles of daily life got in the way. In 2007 José passed away but left our dream in my safekeeping. For years, the dream sat on an altar along with his ashes. Turning the reverie into a reality seemed just beyond my grasp. But then one day in 2021, an apartment was listed for sale in a San Juan neighborhood where many of my in-laws have lived for decades. For many reasons, it felt like a now-or-never moment. So, with family on the island as my “boots on the ground,” I bought the apartment—half of a two-family house—sight unseen.
I’ve spent considerable time in Puerto Rico over the past 45 years, but having my own home has sharpened my perceptions of the island’s day-to-day realities. I love my domestic routine, but with it comes a myriad of problems related to living in an old building on a colonized island with acute supply-chain deficits. Fortunately, my community in San Juan is incredibly caring and has guided me through many unanticipated problems.
As poets tend to do, I found myself writing about my experiences and observations. And thus, this book was born. Return Against the Flow is a memoire recounted in verse centered on the theme of “return to the island”— despite the staggering flow of Puerto Ricans leaving. This collection takes the reader on a lyrical journey towards understanding Puerto Rico’s glorious strengths and tremendous challenges in this pivotal moment of its history.
Selections from Return Against the Flow
December eleventh arrives
enrobed in fog and missing
and the warm cocoon of a cantaloupe room
you painted before
you became one with the wind, your ashes
dancing above Aguadilla.
Born in that place of little waters,
(‘though some say “Aguadilla” is not Spanish
but Taino for garden),
hijo de palmas, orquídeas, y olas del mar
crashing on ivory sand. Your song
ran along stone rivers,
Rio Piedras where you grew,
sweet mangos bursting as they rained
upon your flat cement roof.
I place a slice of that fruit
like a heart
upon your altar
and a flag of your beloved
Borinquen unfurled
black and white in a sky
like leche de coco that once fed
your vibrant flesh.
En el cielo
encancaranublado,
your soul, still
bright, veins the gift of you
like rivulets of molten gold.
RETURN AGAINST THE FLOW
In a small house made of cementthe cane cutter’s childrenbecame men and womenwho departed, and when asked“¿Por qué te vas?” avoided the eyes.–Samuel Miranda (From “¿Por qué te vas?”)
An old man with hair dyed black
like in better days,
flashes a toothless smile.
He is so proud of his little house for sale,
shows me the cramped cocina and soot-filled sala
all built with his very own hands.
The children he raised have all gone.
He sits on his porch alone
watching Puerto Rico pivot
on the point of a pin.
Where will you go? I ask.
¡Pa’fuera! he spouts, Away!
I have come to find a home
of my own,
sink deep in this island
that feeds my soul.
I am a car in the bus lane
driving against the flow
People wave wild arms
to stop me.
Nena, ¿¡Qué tu haces!? … What are you doing!?
They can’t fathom why
I’d plant feet on cratered streets,
entangle myself
in an unraveling realm.
Their worries and warnings
cleave my dreams,
leave me questioning.
I see fresh green sprouting
through cracked concrete.
They show me old green mold
invading houses.
I see red stripes and a single star shimmering
in an aqua sky.
They show me red blood
of a nation crushed by promises.
Landscapes shift with every turn.
A hilltop mansion bathed in gold
looks down on a sea of blue
FEMA tarps
still topping fractured houses
long years
after the storm.
My mind is a cyclone of queries:
How many chickens can run free
on urban streets
and still call it city?
How many feral cats can fit
in a vacant house?
How many abandoned pups can roam
beaches and backroads
before the call of the wild turns
all to dog eat dog?
How can I tell if the sun piercing
the mangroves is sunrise
or sunset?
I pray for answers, I pray for Puerto Rico.
A wrinkled viejita in a well-ironed housedress
rocks on her porch as I pass,
wishes me un buen día,
blesses me with her heartfelt bendición
while Preciosa plays softly
in the background.
THE HOUSE ON PÉREZ STREET
Every year, I wander these streets,
dabs of fresh paint
and stains of decay
equally edging the scene—
restored Moorish arches
stand tall
beside wooden shacks
hacked to their knees
by the wind.
Abandoned buildings,
rusted gates, an empty lot
that no one remembers
who owns. A yellow-plumed parakeet
pecks at weeds in sidewalk cracks.
Aproned neighbors debate what to do,
‘til a Doña in a housedress tucks the bird
between her ample breasts.
Flame-red flor de maga blooms
near blue garbage bins,
Friday-night cerveza cans overflowing
like a frozen river in the tropical heat.
Every year, I wander these streets,
looking for an open door, imagining
scent of my sautéed cebolla
wafting through windows,
mingling with Machuchal’s aromas—
asopao and ocean air.
A three-legged cat limps
across the pavement.
Pink vines climb
the side of a house.
A settee in the marquesina
is upholstered
in my favorite shade of green.
An iron gate swings open.
A street sign gleams in the sun,
black letters on tattered white tin
plainly spelling my name.