From the Inside Quietly

by Eloisa Amezcua

A complex examination of how we come to love and how we come to be, the poems in From the Inside Quietly create an intricate and urgent music of the border and the feminine body. With a voice that’s barbed at times but also full of empathy and grace, this is a powerful debut that will continue to rattle and quake in the mind.
—Ada Limón

In From the Inside Quietly, Eloisa Amezcua writes, “in my own mind / I’m a mirror. // I see everything // except myself.” This book holds reflection—both the noun and verb of it—at its core, from “the bottom of the pool // opal and shimmering” to meditations on language, intimacy, and the self. These poems trouble themselves with what we know and what we don’t: what a daughter knows of her mother’s difficult childhood; what a psychiatrist knows of his patients that their own families don’t know; what we know of our lovers; and what we know of ourselves. Despite all the tricks of light and shadow a mirror can play, all the tricks of distance and shape and proportion, in this stunning collection we encounter a poet who sees, feels, and writes with aching clarity.
—Maggie Smith

Genres: Poetry

68 pages, Paperback

First published January 9, 2018

Reviews

[ReadinWithSteven · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm in shock. I picked this up to casually read and couldn't stop picking it back up every day.

I can just keep rereading these poems. Eloisa Amezcua is a standout in modern poetry - so understandable but so unique, I connect with every word but never could have written them myself.

Teaching My Mother English Over the Phone will forever be one of the best poems ever written.

[Karin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eloisa Amezcua’s debut poetry collection, “From The Inside Quietly” (Shelterbelt Press, 2018), the inaugural winner of the Shelterbelt Poetry Prize selected by Ada Limón, cracks open the concepts of identity, language, perspective, persona, and voice with a blend of observation, confession, reflection, and a fierce gaze on the world. There is a curious lens in these poems that creates distance and, simultaneously, invitation. Observe, but don’t touch. Get closer, but understand, the universal leans toward what is specific, private, cautious.

-from my interview with Eloisa Amezcua at Newfound - to read more: https://newfound.org/current-issue/in...

[Brandon Amico · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sparkling debut collection that embraces and revels in the contradictions inherent in our existences. The poems can be explosive, driving, or can slowly unfold with exceptional precision. They explore the need for companionship alongside requiring solitude to know oneself; desire on one hand and a wielded anger on the other. They play on the taut thread of the speaker and her family’s Spanish and English. And they are so tuned into where they, and the speaker, came from, while gazing intently at the future.

[Gwendolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I see why Ada Limon chose this debut poetry collection to win the Shelterbelt Poetry Prize. I’ve discovered some new favorites here. Persistent themes include the female body (often in relation to the male), love, immigration, and health concerns.

A couple thought-provoking lines:
This is how I was / taught to love: / to silence yourself / is to let the other in.
and
You told me that falling in love / with someone new was just falling / in love with yourself over and over again.

[John LaPine · Rating 4 out of 5]

frank and honest poems concerned with the self, feminine identity, multilingualism and language, and family/parenthood/childhood. enjoyed a lot of these poems. looking forward to teaching some of them, especially to Spanish-speaking students.

[Jose Hernandez Diaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

a pleasure to read. Vulnerable yet strong and beautiful. Perfectly executed. Hats off to this exciting poet.

[John Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book. Strongly advise you add Eloisa Amezcua to your reading list and bookshelf.

[Nicole O'Donnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much language play and lithe connection. These poems showed me graceful in a way I hadn’t thought about. I think I have a crush on the thoughts that these poems grew from.

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

(on pain):

the world becomes impossibly
tender like fingers swollen

papules of foreign material
lodged in the body
to be unroofed or
left there to dissolve

[Jessica Hopper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tender and incisive in equal measure.

[m · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm still thinking it over. I think there were strong poems in this one, but based off the reviews I expected more on identity and the use of Spanish. However, I did like the vulnerability in this.

I might have to read this one again. Also, the square formatting and pages with only 1-4 lines was annoying me to no end, because it just felt like a waster of paper and huge distraction.

[Barton Smock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eloisa Amezcua’s From the Inside Quietly has a voice that asks its hearer to articulate what is missing from readers elsewhere. I don’t know how to prove it. Does beauty know beauty is a shortcut? From text messages to auto correct, from theoretically falling cats to the dry worship of things relayed with no inflection, Amezcua collects communique to salvage the non-dueling songs of hurt and heal while acknowledging with soul how being has to suffer the body’s abridgement. If often formed from the nervously present, the work also makes itself correctly scarce as a medium that brings its own ghost.

[Carly Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore Eloisa's poems. This book blooms through the body, examining what it means to be a contemporary woman, and how our lineage--whether familial/genetic/cultural, whether a string of interactions with the lover, the reader, other authors--creates our sense of self.