Description In “Update on Leda and the Swan,” Alba Cruz-Hacker begins, ‘A kick-ass blow: a giant wing’s turned weak,/ trapped by the heel of a patent leather boot,’ turning both Yeats and Zeus on their heads in a sonnet as wisely parodic as it is elegantly composed. It is tempting, therefore, to call ‘kick-ass’ the impressive debut by this Dominican-American poet, but that would hardly serve the range and richness of a collection by turns earthy and polished, angry and meditative, confessional and political, sensual and acutely intellectual. No Honey for Wild Beasts is a complete and stunning accomplishment in itself, but it is also radiant with the promise of a brilliant career. B. H. Fairchild, author of Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest No Honey for Wild Beasts is an anthem, heart song, lamentation, and freedom cry. In skillfully wrought, passionate, and searingly honest poems, Alba Cruz-Hacker explores the exaltations of women’s experiences, as well as exposing their darker depths. As a woman ‘straddling’ several cultures, she confronts the painful legacies of colonial rule and racism. She also pays homage to the struggles of disempowered individuals in China, the Middle East, and elsewhere, who fight for equality, justice, and humane treatment. Though she perceives herself as a “hybrid,” Cruz-Hacker is truly a borderless Everywoman, a poet extending Walt Whitman’s democratized vision and Derek Walcott’s moral compass and lush Caribbean lyricism. With her rage and outrage, tenderness and vulnerability, devastating insight and luminous mythologizing, her presence in contemporary letters is one we need like a life raft. Her poetry takes us to unchartered territory, to islands of turbulent discovery and ultimate recovery. Maurya Simon, author of Ghost Orchid and Speaking in Tongues Alba Cruz-Hacker writes with a fierce aesthetic and a compassionate engagement with the world. The journey these poems invite you on is necessary and compelling. Chris Abani, author of Kalakuta Republic and Song For Night Poetry : American – General
