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Welcome, everyone.

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Thanks for coming tonight.

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Lee Ann Brown writes of Monica
de la Torre's collection Talk

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Shows, her poetry
deconstructs sets

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of beliefs about
what it means to be

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a multidimensional
subject and turns

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markers of gender and race
on their so-called years.

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Identity and gender politics are
folded neatly into smart disses

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and observations on the
specifics of cultural play

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and gaffe, making this a
book to be reckoned with.

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And I agree.

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This reckoning is crucial
to our experience as readers

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of de la Torre's poems
with a complex vaudevilles

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or landscape, we are begged
to question our perceptions

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and preconceptions of voice,
translation, communication,

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and the performance
of talk and utterance.

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Much of de la Torres
work offers us

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a mixed media tape of
telenovelas, The New York

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Times best seller list, guides
on how to dress well, essays

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and articles, not to mention the
multiple languages and dialects

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working within
the poems as well.

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De la Torre confronts
these intricacies

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in the poem on translation.

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The translator knows that
nothing the poet has ever

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said or written reveals
as much about him

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as the expression on
his face when he was

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asked to pose for a picture.

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He greets posterity
with a devilish grin.

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To the translators delight, he's
forced to repeat the gesture

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at least three or four times.

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The camera has no film.

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De la Torre smartly
acknowledges the flimsiness

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of the original
in our information

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saturated, conflated
in multi-voice world.

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Her work engages the reader
with its urgency in this way,

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and its accrual of meaning
through various facets

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of culture and playful
complications of language.

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Not to say that de la Torre's
work alienates the self,

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rather the self
becomes collective

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in sensations of both
the visceral and surreal.

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In her poem Skin
Is Warm, 31 Nudes,

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de la Torre pushes us
into the collective space.

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I am many seen from behind.

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Black is white, plastic turning.

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I will lie.

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We are not different,
faced with a stain.

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Monica de la Torre's
poetry collections

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include Acufenos, a collection
of poems in Spanish published

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in Mexico City, Talk Shows,
her first book of poems written

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in English from
Switchback books,

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and Public Domain from
Roof Books released

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earlier this month.

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She is also co-author of the
artist's book Appendices,

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Illustrations and Notes
from SmartArt Press.

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She has translated
numerous translations.

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With Michael Wiegers, she
edited the anthology Reversible

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Monuments, Contemporary
Mexican Poetry in 2002

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from Copper Canyon Press.

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She was born and
raised in Mexico City

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and has lived in
New York since 1993,

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where she is senior
editor at BOMB Magazine.

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Please join me in welcoming
Monica de la Torre.

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[APPLAUSE]

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