The Rivers Are Inside Our Homes

Victoria Maria 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 Maria 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

"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 Maria 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 Suarez, author of The Painted Bunting's Last Molt and Amerikan Chernobyl "Ghosts flow through the gulf stream waters of Victoria Maria 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