Mi'ja

by Magdalena Gómez

Mi'ja is a new voice for old wounds, a time machine we are all invited to enter to reclaim the genius of our youth, an opportunity to revisit the loneliness and wonder of things we could see and understand only as children. At once heartbreaking and hilarious, Mi'ja chronicles the first nineteen years of the life of poet laureate, acclaimed playwright, and educator Magdalena Gómez-a life not meant for a child, nor is this book. It is fairytales and bestiaries in ceiling cracks; mythologies on the fire escape; realities of how the smallest acts of kindness can conquer despair. This book will reward you with revelations and celebrations of your own life; it may help you remember or perhaps even discover your truest, most honest self. "A fiercely honest, wickedly humorous, and immensely insightful look at the heart of a poet. Mi'ja takes the reader on a transformational journey. We witness how scars become jewels, how compassion and wit are the best revenge, and how a river of passionate words and stories can soothe the worst injustices. Gómez dances with her ancestors, despite the stale cookies and slaps of childhood. What a harvest! Mi'ja will make you take a deep healing breath." -Beverly Naidus, author of Arts for Teaching Outside the Frame, One Size Does Not Fit All , and creator of the Pandemic Healing Deities series. Professor Emeritus, University of Washington, Tacoma " Mi'ja belongs on your bookshelf between I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and The House on Mango Street . Pure passion, pure life, pure New York City. We thrill watching the narrator survive, thrive and tell her tale. Brilliant!" -Lisa Aronson-Fontes, PhD; psychologist, professor, Fulbright Scholar, global speaker, author of Invisible Overcoming Coercive Control in Your Intimate Relationship and Child Abuse and Working with Diverse Families . "Magdalena Gómez's searing honesty excavates what is dishonest within us. What she allows us to witness here is catharsis-hers, and ours-we will not carry the weight of abuse and oppression on our chests any longer. We will sing, and our liberation will terrify tyrants." -Diana Alvarez, PhD (a.k.a. Doctora Xingona) award-winning poet, songwriter, and opera composer, Quiero A Xicanx Ritual Opera "Gómez unflinchingly shares how adult physical and verbal violence warps a child's ability to love and causes psychological wounds with no statute of limitations. Her lyric grace renders so many painful moments into riveting vignettes and unforgettable imagery. Gómez's skillful crafting of this memoir immediately earns its rightful place alongside contemporary memoirs such as Grace Talusan's The Body Papers, Kiese Laymon's Heavy , and Carmen Maria Machado's In the Dream House ."-María Luisa Arroyo Cruzado, MFA, MAmultilingual Boricua poet Pushcart Prize nominee intersectional feminist educator of color inaugural Poet Laureate (2014-2016) of Springfield, MA; author of Gathering recogiendo palabras and Destierro Means More than Exile

264 pages, Paperback

Published May 10, 2022

Reviews

[Richard Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Mi’ja, Magdalena Gomez creates her own language, which has more to it than just code switching. It’s also a language of emotion grounded on the most gritty physical reality, the reality of the body and of the place and time in which she lived. It gets right inside the reader’s head. We laugh, we are shocked, and we want to say things to the Magdalena of the book. The narrative is full of her early life’s contradictions, and never ending struggle that freed her at great price from the pale outlines of the roles which men have created for women, in which women never win, never get away from ancient paternalistic expectations, never take a new path, and never own their emotions.

Bullying and abuse occur everywhere in the book, coming from the mama and from schoolmates, fueled by fear, prejudice, or the abusers’ own past traumas perhaps, but still toxic and wrong. It has been said that laughter is the best medicine, but laughter can also be loaded with poison. In Mi’ja, Magdalena uses it all the time, as medicine and as come-back to bring down the bringers-down. The narrative becomes percussive with defiance. It dances. But the medicine that transforms endless combat to some form of meaning is to see and love others. From this love evolve the memorable characters that appear in the book.

[D Dina Friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book spares no sentimentality, yet remains poetic and compelling even in its most difficult sections. Magdalena Gomez deserves a huge following for her deftness with language and bravery in truth-telling.