Naming the Roses

Kim Noriega is masterful at hitting the right tone with her uncompromising stark naming of male-on-female brutality, using a detailed storyteller's specificity that reaches effortlessly into collective experience. She does not shrink from beauty either, a subtle beauty, infused with a sense of familiarity that makes her words feel like home. These are brave poems that tell us the stories that live underneath the surface of our lives.