Poetry: Calculations by Brenda Cárdenas

Brenda Cárdenas’ poetry works itself into the folds of overlapping worlds: Spanish and English intermingle with ideas of childhood and adulthood, song and poem, and day and night. Her topics, in the midst of transition, maintain individuality within the patterns of a collective. Words push and pull in a delicate dance; their hard, stand-alone meanings (fear, zigzag, zero) are tempered with lilting, soothing rhythms, like a provocative duende mixed with mother’s lullaby.

In Boomerang, her recently released collection from Bilingual Press, Cárdenas uses this form to obscure the constancies that define our every-day world.

“Calculations” from Boomerang by Brenda Cárdenas, copyright (c) 2009 by Bilingual Press. Used by permission from Bilingual Review Press, Tempe, Arizona.

Read Sampsonia Way’s interview with BrendaCárdenas here.

CLICK HERE to buy a copy of Boomerang.