BuzzFeed's Books Coming in 2019 That You'll Want To Keep On Your Radar NPR's 2019 Poetry Preview NBC's 8 Excellent Latino Poetry Books for National Poetry Month The Rumpus's Books To Read in 2019 Remezcla's 8 Books to Read this Year Bustle's Most Anticipated Books of 2019 Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Poetry Books To Read For Spring 2019 “Through a range of forms―tercets, prose hybrids, lyric strophes, and more―the poems in Scenters-Zapico’s second collection . . . incisively interrogate the aesthetics of cultural difference.” ― Publishers Weekly , starred review In her striking second collection, Natalie Scenters-Zapico sets her unflinching gaze once again on the borders of things. Lima :: Limón illuminates both the sweet and the sour of the immigrant experience, of life as a woman in the U.S. and Mexico, and of the politics of the present day. Drawing inspiration from the music of her childhood, her lyrical poems focus on the often-tested resilience of women. Scenters-Zapico writes heartbreakingly about domestic violence and its toxic duality of macho versus hembra, of masculinity versus femininity, and throws into harsh relief the all-too-normalized pain that women endure. Her sharp verse and intense anecdotes brand her poems into the reader; images like the Virgin Mary crying glass tears and a border fence that leaves never-healing scars intertwine as she stares down femicide and gang violence alike. Unflinching, Scenters-Zapico highlights the hardships and stigma immigrants face on both sides of the border, her desire to create change shining through in every line. Lima :: Limón is grounding and urgent, a collection that speaks out against violence and works toward healing. “Every story has two sides, including those less often spoken about in writing. Natalie Scenters-Zapico defies this notion in her riveting second collection, Lima::Limon . It's a book about doubling—the domestic versus the public, and how beauty can't exist without its counterpart. . . . Reading Natalie's books teaches me the importance of being vulnerable and unapologetic. Her work continually inspires me to push boundaries without guilt. It documents life and death. Without her voice, I wouldn't be as courageous, both on and off the page."— Eduardo Martínez-Leyva, Electric Lit “Reading the book doesn't make me feel better. It makes me weep with anger and frustration. It opens the wounds people try to ignore. It calls the ambulance."— Indiana Review “Her poems in this collection are dark, visceral, haunting, and will echo for days in your mind. . . . Throughout, she builds and breaks down the boundaries of love, place, identity, and memory in ways that are unexpected, and uses them to great effect to write the political and engage us in the surreal violence of our time."— American Literary Review “In these poems, the border is a powerful metaphor, but it is never merely trope; it is actual, political, damaging."— The Kenyon Review “These poems are coyotes that will leave you waterless in the middle of the desert. . . The Verging Cities pulls no punches, yet it is also tender and intelligent."— Blue Mesa Review “With poems that are as intelligent as they are urgent, Natalie Scenters-Zapico offers a necessary poetic voice in these perilous times."— University of New Mexico English News & Notes “[B]ooks like The Verging Cities must be not only written, but read—and read well. You will not win a staring contest with Natalie Scenters-Zapico; this poet cannot, and will not, look away."— American Microreviews and Interviews Natalie Scenters-Zapico is the author of The Verging Cities, as well as the recipient of the PEN American/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry and the National Association of Chicano/a Studies Book Award. The Hunt As a child a macho told me to close my legs or he’d take me to a dark room & make me cry. I closed my legs. He asked me to give him a kiss. I gave him a kiss. I could not stop crying, & he could not understand why. :: My father was a ghost in our house. He would not speak for days, then drop a glass of water on the kitchen floor. My mother always swept up his shatters & buried them in the yard. :: At thirteen a macho put his hands on my knees, then became tarantula, travelled up my skirt. I didn’t scream because I felt chosen. I felt lucky he had chosen me to be hunted. :: Machos hunt to watch women in orgasm. Not because they like to see women in pleasure, but because they like to watch women close to death. :: Machos don’t know what it is to give birth to the dead. Machos know pleasure through release. Machos hunt to give pain & to witness pleasure. To testify: the resurrection of the body. :: I will not apologize for my desire to love a macho who could crush my skull with his bare fists. :: I apologize to a daughter for telling her to close her legs. Machos are hunting, always hunting to see women close to death. :: I work two jobs & still come home to an empty pantry. I am a bad woman when I can’t feed hun