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Pause the Document
Experimental poet and translator Mónica de la Torre’s new collection is a document of both the events of 2020 and the process of a poet rethinking artistic practice as she tracks subtle shifts in her experience during multiple global crises.
As the world shuts down, Mónica de la Torre’s poems become gregarious sites of encounter—homages to connections lost and new bonds forged. Shuttling between lyrical and experimental modes, the poems in Pause the Document challenge linear notions of time by looping the temporalities of dreams, art, the natural world, emotion, and odd encounters under extraordinary circumstances. Richer and more playful than straightforward records, these poems are portals into the intangible dimensions of daily life.
- GenresPoetry
120 pages, Paperback
Published March 11, 2025
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19 people want to read
About the author
Mónica de la Torre
38 books22 followersMónica de la Torre is co-author of the book Appendices, Illustrations & Notes (Smart Art Press) with artist Terence Gower, and co-editor, with Michael Wiegers, of Reversible Monuments: Contemporary Mexican Poetry (Copper Canyon Press). She edited and translated the volume Poems by Gerardo Deniz, published by Lost Roads and Taller Ditoria, and has translated numerous other Spanish-language poets. Born and raised in Mexico City, she moved to New York in 1993. She has been the poetry editor of The Brooklyn Rail since 2001 and is pursuing a PhD in Spanish Literature at Columbia University. Her work has appeared in journals including Art on Paper, BOMB, Bombay Gin, Boston Review, Chain, Circumference, Fence, Mandorla, Review: Latin American Literature and Arts, and Twentysix. Talk Shows is her first book of original poetry in English.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
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March 28, 2025i liked how wide ranging the poems were - long, short, structured, prose - while the tone was consistently restrained. the way that trees were described in that tone was spooky! "anti pastoral." it felt like that got at the feeling of covid being this biological phenomenon with emotional/social effects that are still kinda unprocessed/inarticulable. even though there was such a wide range of poems the sections felt cohesive. i feel inspired to be able to write a book of wide ranging poems that still has cohesive sections... i really liked the one poem entirely in spanish, which felt like it could be by a completely different poet, which i suppose is the whole thing about translation
November 24, 2025
I love the way this collection forces the reader to examine how every aspect of nature and humanity are connected; a beautifully tragic depiction of the loss that stolen identity and forced connection can bring. These poems showcase the duality of the nature around us, whether it be physical or constructed, whether it be the natural world or human nature.
December 18, 2025
“Push the language through the hourglass.”
The most recent collection of poems from Mónica de la Torre, Pause the Document chronicles moments from the poet’s life during times of crises, pauses during these moments, and complicates them through wider critiques of modernity’s structurings and personal inquiry. This is what poet Urayoán Noel calls de la Torre’s “anti-documentary poetics” on the back of my copy of the book. The poems resist simple documentation, instead they complicate what remains true in the process of documenting, and further, how meaning is made within language. Set against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, the poet interrogates her everyday occurrences, unveiling the way language structures habits. This extensive examination was possible during the vacancies left by this pandemic, which disrupted global norms and forced everyone to “pause”. De la Torre also works through the perspective of grappling with personal crises, such as her medical diagnosis. This pausing of the collective normalized time experience creates moments for analysis, therefore, understanding.
The collection is structured in three unnamed movements. In the opening poems, de la Torre spends time writing about the trees that dot her daily landscape. “Unlike the silence of effigies, the silence of trees / refuses to take sides in history’s disputes” the poet writes in “London Plane Tree”. By examining different trees' histories of movement, she illuminates unsaid histories of the contemporary landscape. The vacancy of New York city during the pandemic points her attention to what remains. In “That July” the poet points out the hostile anti-homeless architecture that pollutes the city. In “Movement Phrases” the poet walks across the city, pointing out familiar and new buildings, questioning what it means to build around corporations and the decay of late-stage capitalism. Gentrification is presented as an extension of colonialism, and the absence of bodies draws attention to the reduction of bodies to their labor. In “A Year and a Day” she notes the inability to return to normalcy, pointing out the “outdoor dining bubbles”, as the fundamental idea of normal has been upset, perhaps never existed. Her questions of how one inhabits “normal” spaces returns in “Dream Caravan Dream” which weaves through a sequence of dreams. The subconscious dream space creates new ways of looking at the world. De la Torre notes that “only tents don’t clash with the architecture” while “New England homes” sit as transplants, returning to earlier questions of what constitutes modernity’s structures. In the final poem, “Bogota Notebook” colonial statues topple, once on the avenue that “never led to el dorado”. Truth here is flexible, manufactured as an element of the structured living spaces that can easily be taken for granted.
Pausing to reflect during times of documentation complicates its projected truth. Often, documenting crises miss important nuances which are felt during the time spent experiencing them. De la Torre’s work refutes this, while also taking time to meditate on how these crises are created. The pandemic that ensued from Covid-19 was a destructive consequence of the way humans treat the world. Through this reflection, the poems insist on alternate ways of remembering, somewhere closer to the truth.
The most recent collection of poems from Mónica de la Torre, Pause the Document chronicles moments from the poet’s life during times of crises, pauses during these moments, and complicates them through wider critiques of modernity’s structurings and personal inquiry. This is what poet Urayoán Noel calls de la Torre’s “anti-documentary poetics” on the back of my copy of the book. The poems resist simple documentation, instead they complicate what remains true in the process of documenting, and further, how meaning is made within language. Set against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, the poet interrogates her everyday occurrences, unveiling the way language structures habits. This extensive examination was possible during the vacancies left by this pandemic, which disrupted global norms and forced everyone to “pause”. De la Torre also works through the perspective of grappling with personal crises, such as her medical diagnosis. This pausing of the collective normalized time experience creates moments for analysis, therefore, understanding.
The collection is structured in three unnamed movements. In the opening poems, de la Torre spends time writing about the trees that dot her daily landscape. “Unlike the silence of effigies, the silence of trees / refuses to take sides in history’s disputes” the poet writes in “London Plane Tree”. By examining different trees' histories of movement, she illuminates unsaid histories of the contemporary landscape. The vacancy of New York city during the pandemic points her attention to what remains. In “That July” the poet points out the hostile anti-homeless architecture that pollutes the city. In “Movement Phrases” the poet walks across the city, pointing out familiar and new buildings, questioning what it means to build around corporations and the decay of late-stage capitalism. Gentrification is presented as an extension of colonialism, and the absence of bodies draws attention to the reduction of bodies to their labor. In “A Year and a Day” she notes the inability to return to normalcy, pointing out the “outdoor dining bubbles”, as the fundamental idea of normal has been upset, perhaps never existed. Her questions of how one inhabits “normal” spaces returns in “Dream Caravan Dream” which weaves through a sequence of dreams. The subconscious dream space creates new ways of looking at the world. De la Torre notes that “only tents don’t clash with the architecture” while “New England homes” sit as transplants, returning to earlier questions of what constitutes modernity’s structures. In the final poem, “Bogota Notebook” colonial statues topple, once on the avenue that “never led to el dorado”. Truth here is flexible, manufactured as an element of the structured living spaces that can easily be taken for granted.
Pausing to reflect during times of documentation complicates its projected truth. Often, documenting crises miss important nuances which are felt during the time spent experiencing them. De la Torre’s work refutes this, while also taking time to meditate on how these crises are created. The pandemic that ensued from Covid-19 was a destructive consequence of the way humans treat the world. Through this reflection, the poems insist on alternate ways of remembering, somewhere closer to the truth.
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December 14, 2025For class - narrative
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews