No ESmoking
My tías, a heavy, wet cloud around her, sobbing but holding abuela up. The dust of the road to the cemetery kicks up around their ankles. The wooden houses bow behind them, with respect. That’s what I would see, if I were there.
On Beauty and Surveillance: A Review of Concentrate by Courtney Faye Taylor
When Courtney Faye Taylor begins her stunning debut collection, Concentrate—sat between her aunties thighs, getting her hair pressed—I am immediately transported back to my own childhood. Adolescence is a time of innocence and curiosity, as well as a lesson in contrasts: the sting of beauty upkeep and the confidence of a fresh hair-do, the validation of attention and the safety of invisibility. From the book’s opening section, Taylor makes it clear that Concentrate will stretch the expanse of what a poetry collection is allowed to do.