Light Reading
by Ana María Caballero
Welcome to SWWIM Every Day’s annual Miami Book Fair preview. Every day, we’re featuring a video by a woman-identifying writer appearing at Miami Book Fair 2024. Enjoy this taste of poetry, sponsored by Miami Book Fair and SWWIM. We look forward to seeing you at the Fair!
Appearance at Miami Book Fair 2024: Ana María Caballero, Sunday, 11/24/2024, 12 pm, Room 8303
Transcript of poem I bought the book at the airport in Bogotá and finished it on the flight that carried me home, landing as another late season hurricane approached. A tight book by the new French Noble, Ernaux. The story is probably true, but the entire point is why must we ask. Sixty pages. The brutal telling of a pitiless passion. Brutal because blunt. No lingerie. No foreplay. Only the act. Its dry, spent language. I left the book on the plane, every one of its verbs unmarked.
Ana María Caballero is an award-winning literary artist whose work explores how biology delimits societal and cultural rites. She's the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize, the Beverly International Prize, Colombia’s José Manuel Arango National Poetry Prize, the Steel Toe Books Poetry Prize and a Future Art Writers Award. She’s the first living poet to sell a poem at Sotheby’s and the first triple Lumen Prize finalist. Her Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net-nominated work has been published extensively and exhibited at venues like the Ashmolean Museum, the V&A Museum, and HEK Virtual, among others. The author of six books, she also co-founded digital poetry gallery theVERSEverse. See anamariacaballero.com.
Permission granted by the poet.
Two workshops remain in our Workshop Series--SWWIM Lessons: From Prompt to Placement: “Navigating Your Manuscript with Alexandra Lytton Regalado – What I learned from reading for (and winning) the National Poetry Series” on 11/12 (register here) and “Surfing Submittable with Jen Karetnick – Keeping your head above water in the poetry submissions process” on 12/10 (register here). Price: $80/workshop. Time: 7:00–9:00 PM (EST). Where: Zoom.
Note: SWWIM Every Day is now accepting poetry translations for publication consideration. Please see swwim.org/submit for the full guidelines.
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