Milk and Filth (Camino del Sol)

Adding to the Latina tradition, Carmen Giménez Smith, politically aware and feminist-oriented, focuses on general cultural references rather than a sentimental personal narrative. She speaks of sexual politics and family in a fierce, determined tone voracious in its opinions about freedom and responsibility.

    The author engages in mythology and art history, musically wooing the reader with texture and voice. As she references such disparate cultural figures as filmmaker Lars Von Trier, Annie from the film Annie Get Your Gun, Nabokovs Lolita, facebook entries and Greek gods, they appear as part of the poets cultural critique.

    Phrases such as “the caustic domain of urchins” and “the gelatin shiver of teas surface” take the poems from lyrical images to comic humor to angry, intense commentary. On writing about “downgrading into human,” she says, “Then what? Amorality, osteoporosis and not even a marble estuary for the ages.”

     Giménez Smiths poetic arsenal includes rapier-sharp wordplay mixed with humor, at times self-deprecating, at others an ironic comment on the postmodern world, all interwoven with imaginative language of unexpected force and surreal beauty. Revealing a long view of gender issues and civil rights, the author presents a clever, comic perspective. Her poems take the reader to unusual places as she uses rhythm, images, and emotion to reveal the narrators personality. Deftly blending a variety of tones and styles, Giménez Smiths poems offer a daring and evocative look at deep cultural issues.

Milk and Filth is a collection of 42 poems exploring issues of gender, equality, sexuality and the artist-as-thinker in modern culture. Deftly blending a variety of tones, styles, and structure, Giménez Smiths poems offer daring and evocative looks at deep cultural issues.

Carmen Giménez Smith is an assistant professor in the English department at New Mexico State University, editor-in-chief of the literary journal Puerto del Sol, and publisher of Noemi Press. She is the also the author of Bring Down the Little Birds and Odalisque in Pieces.