Eléna Rivera

"Somehow 'I' remain outside."


nothing said nothing, no
words of praise remained
for the children waiting--
a station, a dock, a ditch,
an airport the site of flight,
duty-free hell disturbed
nothing on a dark night,
windy night, scary night
In the night wheels go round
The square of time in neon

--Eléna Rivera

“In Suggestions at Every Turn, Eléna Rivera focuses tightly if fleetingly on the disjunctive moments of an intermittent quotidian, weaving an 'I,' 'you,' and 'we' into the fabric of this quietly dialogical work. The poems themselves--an amalgam of colloquial and 'official' language--turn frequently from the one to the other, suggesting the instability of the world they reflect.”

"There is a light touch as with a watercolor that feels almost insubstantial but then you come back to it. Reading the book [Suggestions at Every Turn,] seems to produce the state of reverie to which it refers. "