Matriarchy

"A flame burns at the core of Briana Mu?oz's Matriarchy that both illuminates and razes social monstrosities. Fire is reignited as ceremonial copal, fire-keepers, wildfire, firewood, fire dance, Israeli fire, and more, in the context of eternal nature, our common lived experience, and the dying structures of the Patriarchy. You will find words in these poems that consume, transform, and regenerate in crisis and creation. It is an offering for our time and the future."

-Michael Warr, 2020 Berkeley Lifetime Achievement Awardee and poetry editor of the anthology Of Poetry & Protest: From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin (W.W. Norton)



"These poems seek and build refuge-where our ancestors once danced and prayed, in grandmothers' kitchens, at la pulga, in the womb, or an adobe house. Briana Mu?oz reminds us that, even in colonized lands, in times of war, despite the forces of violence and oppression, we belong to mother earth, to our own mothers, to the land and rivers, and to one another. Like danza, like ceremony, Matriarchy is an offering, willing us into healing and rebirth paso por paso, one line, one verse, one poem at a time."

-Michelle Otero, City of Albuquerque Poet Laureate 2018-2020 and author of Vessels: A Memoir of Borders