My Spanglish Es Impecable (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781639808410)

In these poems - of maracuyás, "pastelillos with guava paste," "jugo fresco and café fuerte" - Lynn Ciesielski walks in the tradition of the poet while traveling...where barriers, borders, and synchronicities make for a vocabulary of their own. Ciesielski is careful to outline the sinews of perspective that meet like town squares, atomizing aromas, or labyrinthine underground caves. Listen for where she displaces the given map for the explorer's moxie: "allowing el mercado / to choose me." But embarkation is not without pitfalls, and the poems lean into this aspect of the unknown, where "darkness obscures documentation" and "even a pad-locked room in Colombia / couldn't bar entry to a scorpion." The destination, after all, is not home.

-Edric Mesmer

Poet Lynn Ciesielski is a lover of words, particularly words in Spanish. In this imaginative collection, she takes us to Mexico, Colombia, Miami, and Guatemala. She combines her love of travel and of Spanish with a touch of humor that any traveler or reader can relate to.

-Terez Peipins, author, four poetry chapbooks and four novels

Lynn Ciesielski writes insightful poems about what it is to be human and vulnerable in strange places where Spanish is spoken, and her speaker doesn't always glean what is being said. But this never deters her from forging on and seeking new experiences. Whether she's venturing into a Cancún bar, wandering through Bogotá, or spelunking in slippery limestone caves, Lynn portrays these adventures in imagery and metaphor as rich as the passion fruit dessert she describes to leave us all craving more.

-Pegg Towers, poet and author, The Poetry Review, Mom Writer, Language and Culture