“Bessy Reyna is an honest poet. She writes unflinchingly of loss: a lost island, a lost lover, a lost moment. She faces the police beating of a friend or a father’s drunken stupor with the same bravery. Yet she can also sense the fleeting poetry in a circle of fallen leaves, in the intimacy of bodies. Bessy Reyna is a clear-eyed guide to the world we see but don’t see.”

—Martin Espada, Winner of the 2021 National Book  Award for Poetry