Description
Phil SaintDenisSanchez’s debut collection before & after our bodies tackles complex familial history and struggles, emerging in the rich backdrop of New Orleans, Louisiana.
Through multilayered language and immersive imagery, SaintDenisSanchez interweaves political and social issues–from the lasting impacts of colonialism to environmental disaster–with intensely personal narratives of love, learning, and loss. The long, lyrical form and enrapturing poetic voice draw you in and refuse to let you go.
before & after our bodies maps a stunningly poignant family tree and gets at the root of the social forces that shaped its growth.
Praise for Phil SaintDenisSanchez
Catfish and fingers! Flashes of orange! These poems are like being in a painting. The reader is spun, never disoriented, and held in the lines as if they were anchors.
—Megan Fernandes, I Do Everything I’m Told
Introspective and incantatory, SaintDenisSanchez’s debut is an evocative critique of what it means to be a subject of an empire in decay, a soul in an agnostic world, to mean among the meaningless.
—Darrel Alejandro Holnes, Stepmotherland
SaintDenisSanchez composed not only a love letter to New Orleans, but a Whitmanesque catalog of larger American experience. Structured as a cascading song cycle, the speaker interrogates this country’s colonial legacy—not just content to witness the sublime but embraces it through the music of language.
—Tawanda Mulalu, Please Make Me Pretty, I Don’t Want to Die
About Phil SaintDenisSanchez
Phil SaintDenisSanchez is a poet from New Orleans. His work has appeared in Best New Poets, Poetry International, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. His poem “monarchs are the communication medium for when i die” was a finalist for… MORE