I am so thrilled that I will soon see my latest collection of poetry in print with the publication of VirginX from Finishing Line Press.
This is the mock cover of the book-- will it finally look like this? I do not know, but I do know that J. Michael Walker is a genius. Look at this artwork. Pencil drawing. It just broke me open, shattered me into a million poems, poems that are still coming!
Published by Finishing Line Press, an award-winning poetry publisher, the poems in the chapbook all deal with the Virgin Mary and the intersections of her divinity with Earth goddesses, Tonantzin and Coatlicue. The cover of the book features the drawing, “Por Las Tardes le Gusta Bordar,” by California artist, J. Michael Walker. This incredible drawing appeared on my Facebook page one day, and I immediately began sobbing. What happened was it awoke my long buried grief for my grandmother, Maria de Socorro. She was named for the Virgin (Mary of Mercy), and this inspired me to explore the Virgin’s many identities and names to assist me to come to terms with the role of the divine as I faced the gulf and mystery of death.
Widely published, award winning poet and activist, Veronica Golos, author of Rootwork, says, “In the Virgin X we find a kind of cross stitching, a garment worthy of La Mer. This poetic labor, which we only see because of its wide references and obvious study, offers us a voice both ancient and contemporary. It is the voice of Aztec and of San Antonio; of the Madonna and the goddess with a necklace of hands; it is the cross-bordering that brings to the reader an admixture of English and Spanish, of a meticulous embroidering and yet a sparseness of space and word. I think this book is gorgeous. Necessary.”
Author of blood sugar canto, social activist, poet, fiction writer, and Premio Aztlan winner, iréne lara silva says, “Natalia Treviño’s VirginX is a gorgeous treatise on the Divine Feminine, called by any of her names: Cihuapilli, Coatlicue, the Virgin Mary, Tonantzin, Virgen de Guadalupe, and the Virgen de San Juan de los Lagos. Seamlessly combining the domestic, political, cultural, historical, and familial spheres, VirgenX speaks to the lived truth of faith for those who live on the border, for those in whom the border lives. These poems are a testament to the hard-won faith of 'knife-bone survival,' of grief and enduring, love and pain.”
Finishing Line Press is a poetry publisher based in Georgetown, Ky. It publishes the Chapbook Series and the New Women’s Voices Series, and it sponsors an Open Chapbook Competition, which selected VirginX as a semi-finalist.
Here's the thing:
The book is available for preorders until June 22, 2018 through www.finishinglinepress.com with a release date of August 17th, 2018. My pressrun completely depends on these preorders, and so EACH one is very important. Will you help? I promise not to let you down with these poems. They are, after all, not mine at all. The journey with this goddess has been real, and is the subject of the full length book, which will be a hybrid of essays and poems about this journey.
Want to order? Please visit the New Releases at www.finishinglinepress.com.
I am currently organizing my calendar for readings, and I have BIG NEWS about my launch in October. I can be contacted at nataliams@msn.com or through this website of course!
Thanks for reading! And so many thanks to those of you who ALREADY ORDERED!