CATCH A GLOW

POEMS BY KARL MICHAEL IGLESIAS

NOW AVAILABLE

In 2017, Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria made headlines as one of the most devastating natural disasters in U.S history, leaving thousands without homes and millions without power.

The tragedy occurred during the 45th presidency, where mainstream media is spread thin by cabinet replacements, CIA investigations, and afternoon tweets. In turn, many narratives from the island were lost in the news cycle. And for many Puerto Ricans in the United States who were disconnected from their families during power outages, journalism was our lifeline to knowing anything.

CATCH A GLOW, the debut chapbook by Karl Michael Iglesias, is mused from newspaper articles released in 2017/2018 and explores themes of dependency, abandonment, empathy, and perseverance. CATCH A GLOW blends between the stark realities of the news and the supernatural of Taino folklore - as if the ancestors awoke in the darkness of the blackout to participate in the narrative. This book of poetry presses one of the most important ongoing social grievances on U.S soil and gives voice to a people who have made a history of persevering through both colonialism and mother nature.

“CATCH A GLOW, is both reverent and a reckoning. Iglesias moves through raw narratives with the strength, grace and focus of a dancer: combining moves, challenging rhythms, guiding each poem beyond routine and into the open bliss of abandon, the way truth-telling tends to feel.”

–Dasha Kelly, Poet Laureate of Wisconsin 

“Karl Michael Iglesias invents a new grammar in CATCH A GLOW. Finding the official language used to describe Hurricane Maria lacking, Iglesias has electrified the language in his book by stacking verbs, breaking lines in the middle of sentences,  and using caesuras to alter logic. Iglesias has given us a book of poems up to the challenge of holding our grief and rage.”

–José Olivarez, CITIZEN ILLEGAL 

“CATCH A GLOW is a beautiful collage of fragments that create a new Boricua diaspora, in a post-Hurricane Maria world. With his use of staccato phrases and rhythmic language, Iglesias reenacts on the page, both the splintering and mending of a people and nation. This is an important and much-needed collection.”

–Mayda Del Valle, A SOUTH SIDE GIRL’S GUIDE TO LOVE & SEX 

“As if a storm blew through, the poems in CATCH A GLOW are left wind-sharpened and rain-beaten, fragments sometimes whittled into blades, other times the edges are smooth as music drifting from yard to window. These poems sing their jagged love songs for the people and land of Puerto Rico brilliantly, illuminating for me bright lessons on intimacy, justice, and survival. Karl Michael Iglesias takes up this book’s broken, mosaic style and does his people right. Like money or parcel packed heavy with supplies to get the living done, these poems soar their way to the island and our hearts with their urgent, skillful care.”

–Danez Smith, HOMIE 

If hurricane poetry was a genre, Karl Michael Iglesias would be at the vanguard of its practice. CATCH A GLOW is a book that comes at you from the outset.  The fragmented diaspora is alive in Iglesias’s concision. His witness is biting in its undecorated minimalism. We are literally left to deal with the white spaces between the wreckage depicted in these poems. CATCH A GLOW is made of items, memories, and people who survived the longest blackout in history to take jibaro baths and who were left to count the names after the destruction.  You can find that which is spoken, whispered, and buried in Iglesias’ book.  No need to answer when they ask “Were you affected by Hurricane Maria?” Just give them this book.”

–Willie Perdomo, Poet Laureate of New York

MUZZLE MAGAZINE

BREAKWATER REVIEW