Susana Praver-Perez is a Pushcart nominated poet, editor, and winner of the San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Prize for Poetry (2021). Susana has studied Creative Writing at: Naropa Institute’s Summer Poetics program, U.C. Berkeley’s Poetry for the People, Berkeley City College from which she holds a Certificate in Creative Writing/Poetry, and is an alumna of Macondo & Las Dos Brujas Writers' Workshop. Susana’s poems have appeared in numerous literary journals, anthologies, & multi-media projects. Her first full-length book of poetry, "HURRICANES, LOVE AFFAIRS, & OTHER DISASTERS," was published by Nomadic Press in 2021 and won the 2022 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Excellence. Her second book "Return Against The Flow" was published this year by Black Lawrence Press.
THRESHOLDS
In the haze of half dream
I don’t know where
I am Oakland or San Juan.
I see Barbara Lee & Carmen Yulín,
a pair
of timbales
bridging their hands.
I live on this street and across a span
of trans/continent/al flights
& satellite beeps.
Some days, I croon
buenas tardes to a distant ear,
the sun still
donning its shoes.
On others, coffee assures me
Oakland is awake—
though it still slumbers
and I am the moon cantando.
In the haze of half sleep
this poem
appears like I appear
en mi calle— unannounced —
gliding along an ocean’s rhyme.
Acaríciame con tus palmas— I am
tired of half-lived stories.
Sueño despierta—
tired of adjectives, long for
nouns & verbs.
In the haze of half-light
I wonder what nouns
will meet my eyes today,
what verbs
will animate
this grateful body?
