To order signed copies of any books, please email author directly at: irenelarasilva@yahoo.com
Prices: $18 FirstPoems; Cuicacalli/House of Song; Blood Sugar Canto; Imaniman
$15 flesh to bone
(Hibiscus Tacos is SOLD OUT)
New poetry collection coming January 2024 from Saddle Road Press!
the eaters of flowers
FirstPoems: ani’mal, INDiGENA, and furia
In an unprecedented collection, FirstPoems: ani’mal, INDíGENA, and furia brings together all of ire’ne lara silva’s poems published between 1994 and 2010. ani’mal, focusing on love and desire, and INDíGENA, focusing on identity and culture, were two chapbooks self-published by the author in 2001. furia is silva’s first full-length collection, first published my Mouthfeel Press in 2010. About furia, Carmen Tafolla said, “furia is a fastpaced fury of pain and protest, grief and truth, a mad excursion into the howling depths of that which makes us human, able to hate or love or speak…. this collection is an exciting blend of styles—from the experimental litanies of words which echo, wrestle, and court each other, to the epic eloquence of works–Even in the darkest of depictions, the reader is drawn in, fed with the rawness and the reality of the emotion, fed with the power of truth.”
Limited Edition Spanish/English Bilingual Chapbook of short story, “Hibiscus Tacos.”
“Hibiscus Tacos is a miracle of a story to be tasted as much as read, one that lands me firmly and tenderly in the body, while also lifting me into the ageless realms of spirit. I will return to this story again and again, to remind myself of the sweet immortality of Art and inspiration and love. ” –Susan Power
Published by Alabrava Press!
Sold out.
CUICACALLI/House of Song
Part song, part grito, part wail, part lullaby, and part hymn, Cuicacalli / House of Song is a multi-vocal exploration of time, place, and history. Song lives within and without the poet’s physical and spiritual experience of body, of desire, of art, of loss, and of grief on an individual and communal level. Cuicacalli / House of Song sings survival, sings indigeneity, sings some part of the tattered world back together.
*Finalist, Texas Institute of Letters, Best Book of Poetry 2020
XicaNation review/interview by Iris Rodriguez
IMANIMAN-Poets Writing in the Anzalduan Borderlands
Anthology. Perfect Bound. Aunt Lute Books, 2017.
In homage to Gloria Anzaldúa and her iconic work BORDERLANDS/LA FRONTERA, award-winning poets ire’ne lara silva and Dan Vera have assembled the work of 54 writers who reflect on the complex terrain—the deeply felt psychic, social, and geopolitical borderlands—that Anzaldúa inhabited, theorized, explored, and invented.
Named for the Nahuatl word meaning “their soul,” IMANIMAN presents work that is sparked from the soul: the individual soul, the communal soul. These poets interrogate, complicate, and personalize the borderlands in transgressive and transformative ways, opening new paths and revisioning old ones for the next generation of spiritual, political, and cultural border crossers.
“Within shifting borders—it is good to enter into these voice worlds—to stand, bow & listen in their presence. Peoples, familias, cities, towns, rancherías and the wilderness of all border-crossers & messengers of border spaces open in these pages.”—from the Introduction by Juan Felipe Herrera, US Poet Laureate
Reviews:
Reyes Ramirez in Glass: A Journal
Blood Sugar Canto
.
Poetry Collection. Perfect Bound. 99 pages. Saddle Road Press, 2016.
“Silva is a poet-curandera who “sings the body electric,” transforming suffering into song. She probes the ways that love, justice and forgiveness help heal our individual selves and our communities. I am profoundly grateful for ire’ne’s hard-won wisdom and poetic gifts.”
–Demetria Martinez, author of The Block Captain’s Daughter
Artwork: ‘when wind blows through them’ by Moisés S. L. Lara ©2014
*Finalist, 2017 International Latino Book Award in Poetry
Reviews:
Vanessa Simerskey in Hothouse Literary Journal: https://hothouselitjournal.com/2020/04/07/the-poetry-of-irene-lara-silva/
Rodney Gomez in Latino Book Review
Norma Cantu, poetryoftheborderland in Women’s Review of Books
Shauna Osborn, Kenyon Review March Micro-Reviews
Regina Marie Mills in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review Blood-Sugar-Canto-Review_Borderlands-Mills (1)
Christopher Soto in Poetry Society of America
Michelle Newby in Texas Book Lover
Enduring Azucares
.
Digital Chapbook. English/Spanish bilingual. Approx 42 pages. 2015.
Enduring Azucares is now available from Sibling Rivalry Press!
$3 To order go to:
flesh to bone
.
Short Story Collection. Perfect Bound. 172 pages. Aunt Lute Books, 2013.
“In her brilliant fiction debut, flesh to bone, ire’ne lara silva uses hauntingly lyrical language to tell stories cast in the Latin American tradition of Juan Rulfo and Maria Luisa Bombal. But, do not mistake this work for magical realism. The fantastical elements, raw voices, and shifting realities inhabit an emotional, psychological, and all-too-physical landscape of loss and violence. Life-affirming and intense, the stories sweep us into another world where we come face to face with the deepest truths. Brava!” —Norma Cantú, author of Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera
.
*2013 Premio Aztlan
*2nd Place, NACCS Tejas Foco Award in Fiction
*Finalist, Foreward Review’s Book of the Year Award in Multicultural Fiction
*Selected as May 2014 Book of the Month for the National Latino Book Club/Las Comadres
.
To order directly from Aunt Lute Books: http://store.auntlute.com/flesh-to-bone-p240.html
.
Reviews:
Olga Garcia Echevarria in La Bloga
Barbara Renaud Gonzalez in San Antonio Express
Tammy McCartney in City Book Review
David Bowles in The Monitor
Matt Mendez in El Paso Times
Veronica Bayette Flores in Feministing
furia
.
Poetry. Perfect Bound. 64 pages. Mouthfeel Press, 2010.
“furia is a fastpaced fury of pain and protest, grief and truth, a mad excursion into the howling depths of that which makes us human, able to hate or love or speak…. this collection an exciting blend of styles—from the experimental litanies of words which echo, wrestle, and court each other, to the epic eloquence of works–Even in the darkest of depictions, the reader is drawn in, fed with the rawness and the reality of the emotion, fed with the power of truth.”– Carmen Tafolla, Sonnets and Salsa, Sonnets to Human Beings, Curandera
.
*Finalist, 2011 International Latino Book Award in Poetry
.
No longer in print.
.
Reviews:
Olga Garcia Echevarria in La Bloga: http://labloga.blogspot.com/2010/10/irene-lara-silvas-furia-la-mujer-que-se.html
Sheryl Luna in El Paso Times: http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_19172667
INDiGENA
Poetry. Limited Re-Release. Axoquentlatoa Press 2010. (First Release: La Loba Press, 2001) Chapbook. 48 pages. Stapled. Soft cover. No longer in print.
ani’mal
Poetry. Limited Re-Release. Axoquentlatoa Press, 2010. (First Release: La Loba Press, 2001) Chapbook. 36 pages. Stapled. Soft cover. No longer in print.
ire'ne lara silva 