The First Amelia

Winner of the Alta California Chapbook Prize, Amelia Rodriguez‘s The First Amelia is available in a bilingual edition. The book is part of the Alta California Chapbook Series, edited by Emma Trelles.

The flowing, associative poems of The First Amelia sing with confidence and travel through the veins of memory, family, and the landscapes of Colima. Amelia Rodriguez conjures images of sparring hawks, crushed rubies, trees glassed with ice, a snared kite, and other wondrous and unique visions. She converses with the men and women of her past, and at the center is a twinned self,
“two Amelias hovering / above the turning earth,”
that is hungry and ever-present.

—Alexandra Lytton Regalado, Final Judge, Alta California Prize