TITULADA: Poems

Author: elena minor

Publisher: Noemi Press (2014)

elena minor has described her work as "words of exploration" that "well up on their own terms—who can know what those truly are." Which brings to mind that perhaps loaded term, "indeterminacy"—meaning not only what Marjorie Perloff has in mind in her groundbreaking volume from the early '80s arguing against what she deemed a tired way of looking at the poetics of the day, but also John Cage, when he states that a piece of music can be "performed in substantially different ways." In elena minor's case, you'll find a plethora of ways she deploys her poems, not only linguistically (English and Spanish are on equal footing here), but also the various topographies she has at her disposal when arraying her words (and numbers!) on the page. TITULADA, then, is deliciously indeterminate in the best sense of the word. This is her artistic lineage. Someone asked me to characterize her work, and the phrases that percolated to my lips almost involuntarily were: "deviously playful" and "complicated and rich" and "bordering on hermetic, but engagingly so." Which brings me back to elena's word: "exploration." Her work is, literally, fun to mouth, a linguistic ride you won't soon forget.

"elena minor remembers the city as its traffic breaks, making gaps for words to stretch [collude] pop. Flows out of its limits into a great expanse, where contrasts bulwarking thought threaten to slide away. Her poems warm, uncoil, slither across the page; only to cycle back cold as a desert night. Corrientes de sangre, sendero seco. What's left? Some rattling west. And this body wanting to confide in you: 'bone breathe down.'"

–Kristin Dykstra