One Last Ripe Life, by Angelica Ferrer Recierdo

Poetry, chapbook, 24 pages, from Bottlecap Features. One Last Ripe Life is a debut collection of love poems to children of immigrants, women, artists, lovers, and bon vivants. Stanzas are made up of lines of tender solidarity: “liberation is my homegirl’s laugh when no one is hurting her for once.” Quiet eroticism can be found in the falling of tulip petals, a shared dance, and even in a Portuguese cathedral. These are poems that let out steam and satisfied sighs. You’ll rub your belly and ache for people and homelands. New neural connections may form and parts of you may pinch and unhinge. The spirits of Toni Morrison and Gwendolyn Brooks appear and tell you to live like the author’s mother: with unblocked vessels wading in the ordinary and glorious. Angelica Ferrer Recierdo is the daughter of Filipino immigrants and grew up on the Jersey Shore. She holds an M.S. in Narrative Medicine from Columbia and a B.S. in Nursing from Northeastern. She is pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at Dominican University of California. Angelica is also a poetry editor for The Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine.