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The Rivers Are Inside Our Homes handles themes of loss and exile, aging generations, fable and fairy tale, marriage and hurt, with the island of Cuba at its heart.
These incandescent poems by Cuban American poet Victoria María Castells explore how we can salvage our notion of paradise in an overspent Eden. In thwarted homes located in Havana and Miami, Rapunzel and her prince, persecuted nymphs, Morgause, and Bluebeard’s wife speak to us directly, all in need of returning to safety. Confronting machismo, illness, heartbreak, and isolation, the poems depict how women are at the mercy of men, either husband or oligarch. Yet all generations of Cubans are bombarded with this need to return or to leave, to have both, to have neither.
Meanwhile, hurricane seasons add further instability to shelter and family, growing fiercer every year. Exile and displacement are accepted as permanent conditions. Latin America will mirror Cuba’s violent struggles as conquered land and despotic object. From the colonial desecrations to fraught revolutionary aftermath, the search for home is lyrically charted by this contradictory land of suffering and dreams. Through these poems, dictators, grandmothers, mythical characters, and buccaneers are given voices of equal strength, challenging what constitutes truth under a prism of fantasy and desire.
“This debut collection by a Cuban American poet from Miami centers on questions of exile, immigration and memory, evoking Cuba as ‘this pearl/erupted from Earth, island/of dew and Communist tide.’” —New York Times Book Review
"Castells’ ability to vividly portray different experiences makes the circumstances of the speakers relatable. Her collection of work could serve as a guide and possibly a comfort for the individual who becomes displaced or uprooted. The author uses her writing to hone in on how many Cuban women have no choice but to participate and yearn to migrate to a better place even when the journey is debilitating. Despite these obstacles, Castells celebrates these women for their resilience and tenacity. They truly take on a mythical energy under her literary guise." —Southern Review
"Victoria María Castells forges fierce, fresh mythology with The Rivers Are Inside Our Homes, a portrait of Cuban exile that is also an excoriation of power." —Poetry Foundation
"Told in three parts, this compelling debut from Castells examines Cuba, family, hurricanes, and migration. Bursting with fairy tales and interrogating 'paradise,' images and lines continue to haunt me long after reaching the last page... When you hopefully revel in this, some standouts I highly recommend include 'Rupture, Alternating,' 'A Liking, Somewhat,' and 'Hot Season.'" —Book Riot
"The Rivers Are Inside Our Homes is a poetry collection you can read in small sips or down in one large gulp. For a double reward, try it both ways. It’s an amazing collection." —Tweetspeak
"These are mature and mesmeric poems. Hurricanes, exiled family, the devastating migrations to a new country and landscape, it's all here and so visceral and so well orchestrated. Each poem works an indelible impact on the reader. This book is a necessary catharsis for all of us who've lived and survived this history. A brilliant addition to our literary canon." —Virgil Suárez, author of The Painted Bunting's Last Molt and Amerikan Chernobyl
"Ghosts flow through the gulf stream waters of Victoria María Castell’s gorgeous poems. Caught in the storms of geopolitics, the natural world, and intergenerational memory, this lyric narrative of a Cuban-American family contemplates the complexity of exile and home. Readers of this book will be long haunted by its beauty." —Amy Fleury, author of Sympathetic Magic
“These poems capture the quandary of being Cuban-American, a liminal space of being where one is haunted by the exile condition beyond the possibility of resolution or even the anodyne of forgetting. Castells confronts the agonies of exile, the relentless gravity of memory, and the deterioration of Cuba under communism with disquieting surrealism and stark emotion.” —Orlando Ricardo Menes, author of The Gospel of Wildflowers and Weeds
Victoria María Castells is a creative writing teacher in Miami, Florida. Her poems have appeared in Reservoir, The Journal, Quarter After Eight, Notre Dame Review, and other literary journals.
I.
Trilocation
February Fifteenth MDCCCXCVIII
Necropolis
To Make a Balsa Because You Have To
Hurricane Advice from Your Sister
Guardian
Andrew
Wishing Game
Migration
A Short Journey
CSS Stonewall Stationed in Havana Harbor
On Both Sides, Water
Che in Technicolor
Cuba, Boasted Rival of Swiss Chocolate
Go to the Smallest Room Right Now
Mothers’ Warnings
II.
Rupture, Alternating
Las Princesas Bailarinas
María Antonia
Homemaking
Tintagel
Caretaker
A Liking, Somewhat
On a Husband’s Next Family
Hot Season
Emergency
If the Water is Hot and Does Not Warm You
Maiden Without Hands in the Exile
III.
Key to the Indies
Camelot
Cajas de Muerto
Superpowered
A Ruler is Poseidon
The Pirate
How Can You Make a Communist Flower?
Diagnosis in Exile
Metamorphism
And for the Head, a Crown
Antilles Formation
The Rivers Are Inside Our Home
Shelter in Place
Havana Syndrome
Trump Meeting Kim Jong-Un
Abuelas