Poems + Stories

Select Journals:

POETRY Magazine: Sin Vergüenza (Como los Pájaros),” “I am dark / I am forest” (nominated for a 2018 Pushcart, and you can hear Jenn read this poem here & discuss it in depth here), “Headless Mama Returns,” “The Bruise,” and “Endtimes Meditation on Mothering Self-Care

The Nation: “The Excavation

The New Republic: “I Bride, I Mother, I Pierce Through the Casket

Salon: “Quinceañera with Baby Fever” and “On cultural appropriation: A Latina novelist calls herself out amid the ‘American Dirt’ controversy

The Account: “The Monster” and “we feel good when we do what we’ve evolved to do

Beloit Poetry Journal: “The Decision” and “Shooting Fish in a Barrel”

TriQuarterly: “Snakes-Her-Skirt”

Witness: “Curanderisma” and “La Bee Goes Bar Crashing” (excerpt from Jubilee)

The Rumpus: “The Miracle Bowl,” “The Butterflies,” “The Baby Monitor,” “MOTHER!” (nominated for a 2018 Pushcart), “Girlchild/Prophetess,” “Two Poets I Admire, Women,” “Sonnet as Corrido for This Busted Mami, y Yo”

Adroit Journal: “Domestic,” “Creation of the Birds,”In the Emergency Room,” “Diabetic Jeffrey

Boston Review: “Fear Your Black Son Will Get Shot in the Front Yard in the Car Listening to Music Reading a Book—” & “The Bowl of Life & the Butcher’s Knife”

New England Review: “Lila

Shenandoah: “Fool’s Holy Day [Has Ended]” & “Even the Trees

Poets.org Poem-a-day: “Of Color of Landscape of Tenuous Rope”

New Ohio Review: “The Flash” (2019 Poetry Prize, chosen by Tyehimba Jess)

Cutthroat: “Human     Results” (2018 Joy Harjo Poetry Prize 2nd Place, chosen by Patricia Spears Jones)

Puro Chicanx, Contemporary Chicanx Writers Anthology: “At the Border of Joy,” “Santisma Muerte,” “I am a Witch,” and “Brujería”

Queen Mob’s Teahouse: “Quinceañera” and “Bird Bath (Baño de Párajos)”

Best New Poets 2013: “Karaoke Night at the Asylum” (reprinted)

The Pinch Literary Journal: “Why Birds” (Poetry Prize first place winner)

Indiana Review: “Karaoke Night at the Asylum” (Poetry Prize finalist 2013), “My God, Nieve” (Poetry Prize runner-up 2015)

Kenyon Review Online“Race in America” and “Lieserl Contemplates Resurrection”

Blackbird: “Warn the Young Ones

Crazyhorse: “The Accusation”

The Collagist: “Madhouse of Spirits”

AGNI: “Prayer for the Child I Keep Losing” and “Praise for Lukewarm Tortilla Soup & Dog Hair on the Upholstery”

Blue Mesa Review Poetry Prize: “If the Jornada del Muerto* had a windpipe” (2nd place winner, included in Best of the Net 2015)

Huizache: “Frida Kahlo Visits Me Sometimes in Black & White”

Pleiades: “The Back Roads,” “Tingo* (For Divorce)” (republished in Verse Daily)

PANK: “Billiards” and “Abiyoyo”

Vinyl: “The Problem with My Eyes”

 Cultural Weekly: “In the Shower With Sunday After Watching Lost,” “Machine for Second Chances” and “Rosa Travels Back to the River, Becomes Her Mama”

Diode: “Our Recent Particles,” “Brother I Could Pretend You Were Wolverine”

Baltimore Review: “Ritual With Fish Water”

Connotation Press: “First Light in Tahoe City,” “Reverse: Ten Years of Marriage,” “Mama Teaches Metamorphosis,” “I’ve Carried an Elephant” (nominated for a Pushcart Prize 2015)

The Boiler Journal: “Bloom,” “Bird Woman”

Four Way Review: “Nocturne,” “Scientific Balloon”

Cider Press Review: “Self-Portrait As The Years Between Conquest, Or The Desert Must Sustain Herself”

Tupelo Quarterly: “Mama Hulas with the Eggslice Player One Last Time”

 Superstition Review: “Time Capsule,” “Junkyard Halflight”

Waxwing: “Sewing Feathers,” “After the Miscarriage II

As/Us: “A Daughter’s Maternal Instinct, or The Egg-Thief, Great Grandma, & the Woozy Place,” (short story – omitted excerpt from an early draft of Jubilee), “Breath that moves on water / small boat, small rower”

Acentos Review: “Pyre for Waiting: She May Have Been A Witch” (short story)

Reservoir: “Inca Ice Maiden,” “Returning to Oz”

Tinderbox Poetry: “River Pitch,” “Searching the Skyline”

Arsenic Lobster: “In Situ,” “Clean Kitchen,” “After the Miscarriage” (nominated for Best New Poets 2014)

Stirring: “Bakku-shan* (For Aging)”

Menacing Hedge: “Blood is blood is” (nominated for Pushcart Prize 2014, nominated for Best of the Net 2015), “Mother Judas,” “Case History,” “Easter Sunday,” “Mrs. Bitterstout,” “The Daughter’s Curse,” “Birthright Disguise,” “Traveling With Leonora Carrington,” “The Demon,” “Night Cropping,” “Resfeber: Re-Membering Trauma”

Origins: “Leaving Anthony,” “Self-Defense, Or What I Wish Mama Had Taught Me”

Life and Legends: “Prayer,” “Sighting,” “I’m Tempted to Tell You I Love the Coyote”

Contrary: “Cattle Call Leaves, A Ghost Story” (short story, Editor’s Choice Prize 2013 – excerpt from an early draft of Jubilee), “Cleaving,” “What the Water Did

The Acentos Review: “Out,” “Palabras: Mama e hija-mujer,” “Mirrors, Wives, & Infants,” “Mary’s Prayer,” “Upon Seeing Another Cross On The Highway’s Edge”


Collaborative Poems with alicia elkort

We didn’t want to be queens.
We wanted not to be hollowed, not to be buried alive. & when they wrapped us in tarp & threw us to the ocean, those boys/men who’d shamed us deep [water silence] into brittle bones where we’d hidden our wounds we wanted our mothers.

~ from “Prom Queen[s]”

Prom Queen(s) Missouri Review

Two Poets Email on a Sunday Afternoon, We Did Not Go To Prom The Southeast Review

We Return to the Beginning [Teach Ourselves Consent] underbelly

I found a bottle at the bottom of the ocean The Georgia Review

Cornflower Paloma – The Georgia Review

Aunt Lucy Packs a Suitcase, One by One, A Small Metamorphosis or the Power of Seeing, invention of the [shrinking /growing/ myth or how I learned to shift & shift again, Why Death? Why Mud They Said: A Multi-Genre Anthology of Contemporary Collaborative Writing, Black Lawrence Press

A Small Metamorphosis or The Power of Seeing – AGNI

One By One – AGNI

In Conversation

Call and Response: Two Questions AGNI Online

her breath became my breath — in conversation The Georgia Review