Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire
2019
First Published
4.63
Average Rating
92
Number of Pages
Ambitious and emotionally complex, Michelle Peñaloza’s debut poetry collection, Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire, explores grief and violence, the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality, and the complications of desire. Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire won the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk National Prize. Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of Oceanic, calls Peñaloza's book "remarkable" and says "Of this I am certain: I’ll be celebrating this poet for many years to come."
Avg Rating
4.63
Number of Ratings
56
5 STARS
68%
4 STARS
27%
3 STARS
5%
2 STARS
0%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads
Author
Michelle Penalosa
Author · 4 books
Michelle Peñaloza is author of two chapbooks, landscape/heartbreak (Two Sylvias, 2015), and Last Night I Dreamt of Volcanoes (Organic Weapon Arts, 2015). Her full-length collection, Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire, which recently won the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk National Poetry Prize, will be published in Fall 2019 . Her work can be found in Prairie Schooner, upstreet, Vinyl, and The Collagist, with poems forthcoming in The Normal School and Third Coast. Michelle is a Kundiman fellow, and a former Made at Hugo House Fellow. She is the recent recipient of the 2019 Scotti Merrill Emerging Writer Award for Poetry from The Key West Literary Seminar, as well as scholarships from VONA Voices and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, among others. Michelle lives in rural Northern California.
