Naomi Ayala's poems explore wide-ranging themes in an ever-changing landscape--from the city streets to the introspective solace of the woods. These lyrics deconstruct the political world of man, offer hope through a compelling, lyrical, spiritual intimacy, and bridge the gap between the two with words full of ecological intensity.Her deep connections with the working class combine with a love of the land to offer us lilt and dream, revelation and foretelling."HOLE"One morningthey dig up the sidewalk and leave. No sign of the truck--only the large, dark shadow digging and digging, piling up sludge with a hand shovelbeside the only tree. Two o'clock I come byand he's slumbering in the grass beside rat holes. Three and he's stretched across a jagged stonewall, folded hands tucked beneath one ear--a beautiful young boy smiling, not the heavy, large shadow who can't breathe. Four-thirty and the August heattakes one down here. He's pulled up an elbow jointsome three feet round. At seven I head home for the night, pass the fresh gravel mound, a soft footprint near the manholelike the "x" abuelo would place beside his nameall the years he couldn't write.


Born in Puerto Rico, Naomi Ayala moved to the United States in her teens, eventually earning an MFA from the Bennington College Writing Seminars. Writing in both Spanish and English, she is the author of three poetry collections: Wild Animals on the Moon (1997), This Side of Early (2008), and Calling Home: Praise Songs and Incantations (2013). She lives in Washington, DC, where she teaches poetry and memoir to English-language learners at the Carlos Rosario School as a founding teacher of the Write Who You Are Program.