From the Bones Out: Poems

de los Santos started her career writing poetry with this first published work in 1999. (Her colleagues still ask her when she’ll return to the genre.) When I decided to become a de los Santos completist, I tracked down a copy of this slim volume of contemporary poems. If you’re looking closely, you can see themes emerge in her broader work here: family history, knowing oneself, celebrations, love of place, and tea. Standouts in the collection for me are “October: One Year Later”, “Embodiment”, and “Heaven”. But what I love most of all about this is noticing how her poetic voice comes out even when writing prose (and the frequent allusions to poems).