Estoy Tristeza

Author: Ximena Izquierdo Ugaz 

Publisher: No, Dear (2018)

From the author: "Estoy Tristeza is a collection of poems dating from 2010–2018, about being ubiquitous or displaced, getting to know my father after his death, travel on public transportation, sharing meals with fam, caminando en Lima, understanding Fujimori as a child of '90s Perú and the effects of that in our lives, and falling in love with myself and others."

"Estoy Tristeza's grammar is both disjointed and highly conscious. It takes the verb ser, which signals impermanence, in place of the prescribed sentir or tener, which would have the subject possess tristeza rather than be it. This grammatically estranged reconstruction amplifies the phrase, compels the reader to consider the ways that sadness courses through us. The poet’s first gesture asserts a stability in her unmooring; a grace in her own winding path, and this is how we begin, in a state."

–Connie Mae Oliver