Santa Tarantula

“Jordan Pérez lends scientific, lyrical attention to the deepest wounds within families and sexes. This fearless, economical writing haunts from the start, excavates and sings of pain and persistence.” —Sheila Maldonado, co-judge, author of that’s what you get

“In Jordan Pérez’s magnetic debut, foundational narratives—religious, girlhood—crash into each other, strike sparks that illuminate violence and tenderness. What shapes us, what disfigures us, in these poems, is yoked together with a startling imagination and language that’s precise and resonant. A memorable and powerful collection.” —Eduardo C. Corral, author of Guillotine

"Jordan B. Pérez’ Santa Tarantula considers the devastating traces of gendered violence and intergenerational trauma, grief and pain, passed on from the state’s abuse, to the family, to the child’s body. But the girl at the center of these poems is no victim crushed into oblivion. She transfigures by her own alchemy. Pérez’ poems remind us there is always life, connection, and pleasure to be made anew." —Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes, author of The Inheritance of Haunting

"Jordan Perez’s hard-driving debut finds solidarity with those run through the meat grinder of heteropatriarchy—its particular pockets and violences—and those who lifted a sabotaging instrument—or their mere selves—against that machinery. Lyrical and loud, if one were to call this book 'unflinching,' I would ask, incredulously, how they ever expected a speaker such as this to flinch." —Kyle Dargan, Books Editor for Wondaland Arts Society