This first collection by a talented Chicana Mestiza poet invokes her upbringing in Fairbanks, Alaska. Much of the work, some of it written as dramatic monologues, reflects her passionate interest in women’s lives; he woman who longs to escape on the late night train; the deserted woman who raises Akitas, “good-natured killers”; the whore in the Fairbanks motel; the young widow walking home remembering her husband’s chest “crushed like an egg” when a jack shifts. Other poems, like the title poem “Reaching Destruction Bay,” are deeply rooted in the harsh and dramatic landscape of Alaska.
”A manuscript with diversity: romantic, brutal, political, emotional. And a wonderful, steadily yielding sense of language. Reveals a rich heritage, which she brings to the reader in powerful, generally integrated ways.”—Anya Achtenberg
