Saint X

by Caroline Cabrera

The questions Caroline Cabrera asks have answers that are not answers, that are personal and not, intimate and not, shared and not, and all parts of "our real concern." The voice in Saint X is confident, vulnerable, wounded, doubtful, awed, courageous, and soft and kind and tough and honest and responsible. The voice says that our lives on this planet are ridiculous and remarkable and eerything should be considered. Cabrera considers how mattering matters, what it's like to live as a thinking girl and a wise woman, how the answers are badly needed and impossible, and how "A valley too likes to be held." Cabrera says so much without saying so much. What' s difficult here becomes a flower seed, a need, which becomes a necessary bloom.
—Lesle Lewis

In Caroline Cabrera ‘s terrific new Saint X, marked by graphic diamonds, appropriated questions hang quasi-scientifically in what becomes a remarkable, full-length staging of a high-stakes relationship. The results are wry (“Plants are dicks!”) or casual as sleepy bedtime talk (“How much more of this do you have in you?” the poet soon asks her non-stop interlocutor). Most often, though, the replies are signaturely and sweetly akilter (Do I / in bed in the/ dark matter? ) As this beautiful poem is also a self-exam by a hyper-intelligent, truly lyric conscience, X marks the untouched hotspot—needed, as Cabrera confidently demos here, because as the comet-questions shower overhead “To an animal, closeness can mean death/ I mean you, human.”
—Terri Witek

Caroline Cabrera asks the universe’s impossible questions: what is dark matter? Do rogue waves exist? What is Earth’s hum? Answers come in the form of poems, swerving gorgeously between science and satire, play and pathos, dream and desire. Finally, these are poems of the body as the home of fears and pleasures, as the source of so much wonder. “My field / of vision reaches only so / far but I think I see you / coming,” she writes, and I’m there. Converted.
—Julie Carr

Beginning with the question “Do I / in bed in the/ dark matter?” and veering between star matter and flesh, Caroline Cabrera interrogates the surrealism of ontology, revealing insight into how displaced we can be as women and as people learning how we are of the world. In Saint X, Cabrera pulls us in from underwater or out of the heavens, and we are left gulping for air, grateful and unafraid.
—Carmen Gimenez Smith

Genres: Poetry

60 pages, Paperback

First published January 31, 2018

About the author

Caroline Cabrera was born in Pembroke Pines, Florida and holds degrees from Stetson University and the University of Massachusetts. She is the author of the chapbook, Dear Sensitive Beard (Dancing Girl Press, 2013). She works as chapbook editor at Slope Editions Publications and currently lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Reviews

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cabrera tears apart the boundaries of body / brain / behavior / care or terror of human touch / immortality in this collection that answers questions from The Where, the Why, and the How: 75 Artists Illustrate Wondrous Mysteries of Science.

"I invite age to settle in my body. Youth proved too difficult." (58)

[Sheri Fresonke Harper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unusual format for poems in Saint X by Caroline Cabrera adds to the reading experience. She uses questions to guide her poetic delving into nature and personal experience. A feminist perspective shows up thematically throughout related to sexuality and body image. The poems vary from short to open to tightly driven. Makes an interesting read.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cabrera excels at depicting the frustrations of soul-searching and navigating unstable relationships.