The Writer’s Center presents a FREE virtual chat about the craft of poetry! We’re joined by poet Dorsía Smith Silva to discuss her debut full-length collection, In Inheritance of Drowning. Dorsía is in conversation with Emily Holland, poet and editor of Poet Lore, America’s oldest poetry journal.
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Dorsía Smith Silva is the author of In Inheritance of Drowning (CavanKerry, 2024), an eight-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Best of the Net finalist, Best New Poets nominee, Cave Canem Poetry Prize Semifinalist, Obsidian Fellow, Poetry Editor at The Hopper, and Full Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize and has been recently published or is forthcoming in Cream City Review, Shenandoah, Terrain, The Ecopoetry Anthology: Volume II, The Cimarron Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She has attended the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Workshop, Bread Loaf Writers’ Workshop, Kenyon Review Writers’ Workshop, Tin House Winter Workshop, Looking Glass Rock Writers’ Conference, and Poets and Scholars Summer Writers Retreat at the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice. She has also received support from Bread Loaf and Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing and is a member of the Get the Word Out Poetry Cohort of Poets & Writers in 2024. Moreover, she is the author of Good Girl (poetry micro-chapbook), editor of Latina/Chicana Mothering, and the co-editor of seven books. She has a Ph.D. in Caribbean Literature and Language.
About the Book
In Inheritance of Drowning begins with the exploration of the devastating Hurricane María in Puerto Rico. Written with vivid imagery, these poems highlight the natural world, significant impact of hurricanes, and marginalization of Puerto Ricans. The collection also explores the multiple sites of oppression in the United States, especially the racial, social, and political injustices and intersections of race and violence. Dorsía Smith Silva’s powerful voice confronts the “drowning” of BIPOC communities as they are displaced, exploited, and robbed of their identities and witnesses their resistance and resilience. In this memorable debut, Smith Silva’s In Inheritance of Drowning will grip and enrich readers.
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