Abstract
This collection of poems explores the transcendental, imaginative realms of identity, culture, family (including the mapping of Sephardic Jewish family history) and the self’s longing to connect more with them. The self also begins to find herself more empowered and coming to terms with queer desire and sexuality in general throughout the progression of this work. The constant delving of linguistic experimentation within the poems also allow for each theme to transform into more mythological, unconscious, and psychological entities that hold within them more subtle aspects of surrealism and wordplay. I am specifically interested in the concept of experimentation, especially with regards to messing around, translating, and including Spanish into my work. My poetic style involves attempting to be as spare and precise with my language as possible, so I try to balance between including phrases from research materials and my own poetic rendering. I’m also obsessed with the etymology of certain words.
I attribute much of my poetic inspiration primarily towards woman poets such as Adrienne Rich, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Natalie Diaz, but have also seemed to reframe my conception of identity and central image with the help of Natalie-Scenters Zapico’s Lima::Limón. My collection parallels the speaker’s obsessions (anxiety, relationships, food), especially with the focus of lemon, not only as the object itself, but as a metaphor that serves as both a sweet and sour palate cleanser. The lemon serves as a symbolic representation that I choose to closely connect to religion but which also serves as an image to set the stage for a budding feminist anthology. This is immediately captured through the title poem, “Moon as Salted Lemon”. Throughout this collection, the speaker finds ways to release herself from different facets of control, such as through the patriarchal and strict structure of religion she grew up in. This anxiety is also manifested within the speaker’s mental illnesses (GAD, OCD tendencies, phobias), which make her feel she always needs to fight for control. The men she attaches herself to, figures of authority, are other, more subtle versions of this force that possess a hold over her. In this collection, the speaker wields her voice, and “restores a remnant / of [her] tongue”; to rendition off of Anzaldúa, her “wild tongue”, where “the salvaje [,] refuses / to leave [her]”.