Las Piedrecitas

The poems in Noelia Cerna’ s beautiful, debut poetry collection, Las Piedrecitas, sing. They sing in English and Spanish; they sing of her childhood and Nicaraguan heritage; they sing of brown bodies and immigrant hands thickened by work and struggle; they sing of hope and redemption and survival. Cerna’ s poetry does not warble, it projects in an unflinching voice that tackles themes such as prescribed gender roles, addiction, domestic violence, familial estrangement and racism in a country where “ whiteness requires you to fold to the point of breaking.” These poems proclaim their truth in an indignant chorus that refuses to fold, refuses to break, and refuses to stay silent for one more minute. — Caridad Moro-Gronlier, author of Tortillera and Visionware

Noelia Cerna is a Latina poet based in Springdale, AR. She was born in Costa Rica and immigrated to the United States at the age of 7 where she received a Bachelor’ s degree in English from Westminster College in Missouri. Her poems have been published in audio form in Terse. Journal and in print in the The Revolution [Relaunch], the Girl Gang blog, the Plants and Poetry Journal and The North Meridian Review. Noelia is a book editor for the North Meridian Review and an award winning writing mentor for Pen America’ s Prison Writing Mentorship program.

CONTENTS Foreword Las Piedrecitas Tortuguita Cantos y Playas Pajarito Tourism and Soda America When Dancing with the Sandinistas DACA MovingAway Volcano Dictators Dances and Corners Theaters in the Fall Advice (to My College Self) Return to Las Piedrecitas Tamales Sanctuary Holy Sugar Ash Manos Estrangement in Three Steps An Ode to Brown Fathers Rust Roots When my white female colleague calls me angry A Kyrie for Dreams Love Letter to the Immigrant The one in which I work for a church Most Holy Janitor Taco Tuesday Brown The Text from My Mother Is about Her Upcoming Appointment The Day a Full Moon Remains in the Sky at Dawn and I Don’ t Take a Picture Cathedral And Sometimes Grief Is an Unopened Bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos . . . Walking Our PTSD Liturgy for the Lost Ghoster A Poem for the Tree Growing by the Overpass 100 Dear Timid Latina Girl Genesis The caller on the crisis line tells me about her trauma Acknowledgements Notes