To Love an Island

Book excerpt: Ana Portnoy Brimmer's debut, To Love an Island, offers the stark recognition that disaster is political and colonialism the most violent of storms. Beginning with the aftermath of Hurricane María and spanning the summer insurrection of 2019 and subsequent earthquakes in Puerto Rico, To Love An Island is an exploration of collective trauma, an outpour of amassed grief, a desire for unleashed mourning, a fuck-you to resilience, a brandishing of resistance. Of brazen decolonial conviction-it summons tempests, departures, strawberries, cacerolas, mangroves, guillotines, all the complexities of loving a place under imperial duress. ANA PORTNOY BRIMMER is a poet and organizer from Puerto Rico. Her debut full-length collection, To Love an Island (2021, YesYes Books with Spanish edition forthcoming from La Impresora) was originally the winner of the YesYes Books 2019 Vinyl 45 Chapbook Contest. Portnoy holds a BA and an MA from the University of Puerto Rico and is an alumna of the MFA program in Creative Writing at Rutgers University-Newark. She is the winner of the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest 2020. She is the daughter of Mexican-Jewish immigrants, resides in Puerto Rico, and lives for dance parties and revolution.