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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

Poetry Off the Shelf: The Fact of a Suitcase

(MUSIC PLAYS)

Helena de Groot:  This is Poetry Off the Shelf. I'm Helena de Groot. Today, “The Fact Of A Suitcase.” Leslie Sainz is about to come out with her debut collection titled Have You Been Long Enough at Table? It's a collection about Cuba, family, exile, but most of all, about everything she doesn't know or wasn't told. So, when I sat down to talk to Leslie, I first wanted to get some basic facts straight: dates, places, conditions of exile. But even there, Leslie wasn't 100 percent sure. She told me what she remembered. And later, when I reached out to her to fact-check this intro, she said she'd actually remembered a few extra details. So here is that: During or right after the revolution, both of them left—her father in ’56, her mother in ’60. They were still little kids. Her father was just two years old when he moved to Brazil with his family. And her mother was four; she went to Jamaica. A Catholic boarding school there had accepted her and her sisters as refugees. It wasn't until probably sometime after high school that the both of them moved to the US and they would eventually end up in Miami, Florida, which is where Leslie Sainz grew up. How much were you told about this history growing up?

Leslie Sainz: That's a great question. Not a lot, and certainly not without prodding on my end. I would say my parents definitely consider themselves assimilated people. And yeah, it was never really something that they talked about. I think they were much more invested in enacting whatever conservative ideals they adopted because of the revolution and because of the exile that they were then sort of stamped with at quite a young age. I think they were more interested in enacting those conservative ideals here and focusing on US politics and trying to sort of indoctrinate, I would say, their own children towards retaining those conservative ideals.

Helena de Groot: And so do you know, like, was their political consciousness something that was very present in your household? Was that something that was talked about?

Leslie Sainz: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, a lot of people are sort of shocked to hear that I grew up in a sort of devout Fox News household. I mean, every single night Fox News was on television while we were eating dinner, and the idea of family dinner was incredibly important to my parents. And so we always sat down together—my parents, myself, my brother. But that practice of being present with one another was very much undercut, ironically, by, at the time, Bill O'Reilly and the other talking heads on Fox News.

Helena de Groot: How did you experience that as a kid and then coming of age?

Leslie Sainz: I mean, I think I'm still . . . I'm still wrestling with this. As a kid, I didn't know any better than my parents weren't watching a reputable news source. And it wasn't just the zealotry around the network itself, but also openly being sort of antagonistic towards other news networks, right? So the claim that something like MSNBC is a hoax, or my father often refers to CNN as the Communist News Network. So, yeah, so I mean, as a young kid, I didn't know that these weren't sort of commonly accepted beliefs around the media. And I should also say that, you know, my father is definitely a sort of domineering, patriarchal figure that subscribes to stereotypical Latin family machismo. And so there was very much this sense of what my father says is fact. And so it kind of took me a long time to separate myself from that schema. And I think a normal part of growing up is recognizing the humanity of your parents. They're not just people who live to be in service to you. They're people who have their own lives and their own traumas and they can get it wrong. And it was kind of debilitating for me as a young person to rub against the first time it was obvious to me that my parents were wrong about something. And I can't name exactly when that moment was. I just sort of remember almost bodily what that sensation was because it felt like the impossible had happened. And I think I'm always thinking about how, over time, those sort of inaccuracies have compounded into my current understanding of how I grew up and what I was taught to believe, and believe without questioning.

Helena de Groot: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And do you remember, if not, what exactly was that first little crack in the veneer of their . . . my parents know everything and are right about everything, you know, without knowing exactly what it was, do you remember how old you were, approximately?

Leslie Sainz: Honestly, I was probably in college.

Helena de Groot: Oh, wow!

Leslie Sainz: Yeah. It probably took me that long. Yeah, and I think in terms of their political ideologies, I didn't really understand their conservatism until I was no longer living under their roof. And going off to college was kind of the first time that there was that separation. And this may be a minor detail, but I got my license kind of relatively late in life. So even throughout high school, there was still this sort of intense dependency that usually isn't there for teenagers, who are driving and taking themselves out to parties or meeting up with friends. And so I think that link potentially could have been revealing some cracks, maybe a little bit sooner. But that happened in college for me. Yeah.

Helena de Groot: Can you tell me about that process? Like, was it a fun process? Like, Oh, I am me and I like this? Or was it, like, profoundly disturbing, alienating? Do you remember what that process was like?

Leslie Sainz: I mean, I think I experienced all of that, as you've just described it. And I vividly remember kind of confronting them like, hey, I'm learning more about economics in college, and turns out trickle-down economics is bullshit, you know? And I remember my parents being so quick to try to correct my understanding, I think, of their positionality. You know, I would say, "You're Republican." And my father would very quickly say, “We're Libertarians. We just don't want the government in our business.” And I think maybe that's sort of where the wounds of their experience, and, in some ways, non-experience of communism on the island reveals itself. This idea that a large government is bad because it leads to dictatorship and human rights abuses, et cetera. But in terms of how my own process of unlearning went, I think it was really fraught with a lot of worry. You know, I felt that they were right about everything because that's what I was taught to believe. And I think I became very concerned that if that worldview, which was imprinted on me, was incorrect, it was sort of shattering to consider, well, what can I actually trust? And I think it took many more years for there to be maybe a sense of ease or relief in the idea that I could discover it for myself. I didn't need their acceptance around that. I didn't need them to say, we see that you don't agree with us and that's OK because we can still have informed debate or, we can still come to the dinner table and speak in a civil manner. But that I mean, that also isn't true. But . . .

Helena de Groot: Do you fight?

Leslie Sainz: Oh, yes, quite a bit.

Helena de Groot: About politics, I mean, right?

Leslie Sainz: About politics, but about other things too, yeah.

Helena de Groot: Yeah. And so you're still confronting them. It's not that you've given up.

Leslie Sainz: I do think I've given up in terms of politics. I excuse myself from those conversations. And I think, too, I've become more keenly aware of their sort of regurgitation of Fox News talking points. And I think once I started to recognize that that sort of mirroring or parroting was happening, I made the decision to not engage with it for my own mental health for the sake of our relationships, and honestly, we have plenty more to fight about. So, yeah, there's definitely still some heated banter there. And, you know, I can handle it when it's about literally anything else but about politics. It's sad. It's quite sad.

Helena de Groot: Yeah, and when your parents are sort of parroting talking points, well, they don't sound like themselves, right? Do you feel like you know your parents in a meaningful way?

Leslie Sainz: I do. I do. I think that it's so complicated 'cause I think a fear of mine is perhaps villainizing my parents in this work, which they've read, I think . . . I'm very close with my parents. I love them deeply, flaws and all. And I do feel like I know them quite well. I would say I definitely know my father more than my mother. And I think that's because he is more transparent, perhaps more recognizable to me, because I think I have inherited some of his worst qualities.

Helena de Groot: Such as?

Leslie Sainz: Certainly, a stubbornness, a sensitivity as well. I wish I could say that it has served me well, but I'm not sure it has.

Helena de Groot: I mean, you couldn't be a poet without at least some of both of those. You know, you have to be pretty stubborn to choose this path and sensitive to actually write the poems.

Leslie Sainz: I love that framework. And I will keep that close in the moments when maybe my partner reminds me that I'm being too stubborn or too sensitive.

Helena de Groot: Well, you know, to then continue on this path a little bit of like, you know, you are close. You fear that you may have painted too dark a picture of your parents in your book. I read in an interview that you gave that you're grateful to come from a culture that reveres poets and to have been raised by parents who understand that poets can and have led revolutions.

Leslie Sainz: Yes.

Helena de Groot: So can you talk about that? Like, you know, how did you come to that reverence for poets? How did that show up?

Leslie Sainz: Yeah, that's such a good question. And I'll just reiterate that I do feel incredibly fortunate that for all the mess of our relationships, my parents, especially my father, who was an artist himself, they've always believed in my ability to pursue this seriously. We were really raised under the notion of whatever it is you wanna do, you have our support. But the only caveat being you have to be the best at it.

Helena de Groot: Right, a small detail.

Leslie Sainz: Yeah, exactly.

Helena de Groot: Never mind that one.

Leslie Sainz: Totally easy and applicable to writing poetry.

Helena de Groot: Totally.

Leslie Sainz: But, yeah, as far as how that sort of reverence for poetry entered my childhood, I mean, my father would talk often about my grandmother, who we affectionately called Mamacita, how she would read Jose Marti poems to him when he was a kid. I stumbled upon one that definitely jogged some visceral memories for me. So I thought that maybe that would be the perfect poem to read, so I’ll just get right in that. (SPEAKS SPANISH). "My friend the artist portrays his angels golden and stout, kneeling on clouds as they pray, with bursting suns all about. Paint me with your best creations the angels, small and afraid, who the thoughtful present made to me of their red carnations." You know, we had books kind of floor-to-ceiling all over the house. And so there was definitely an invitation to explore language and lyric at a young age. In particular, there's this one poem in Portuguese, actually, 'cause my father, having grown up in Brazil, is fluent in Portuguese, and growing up he had a lot of friends in the area who were Brazilian, and they would often come to the house and smoke cigars and drink on the patio and all these things. And so I grew up listening actually to a lot of Bossa Nova and a lot of Brazilian music. But there's this three-line poem that has haunted me since childhood, and I always forget the author. So apologies, but it goes (SPEAKS PORTUGUESE) which I probably pronounced that so, so, so horribly. So apologies for the Portuguese speakers. But what that translates to is: “Twisted streets, Dead moon, Your door.” And I just, I have never been able to shake off that poem. It has just . . . If I can write anything half as good as that, I think I will be content.

Helena de Groot: Maybe this is an impossible question, but what about it? What appeals to you?

Leslie Sainz: Yeah, I mean, I think the expansiveness of the sentiment in such a tight container, right? So just three lines, the use of rhyme, which is incredibly impressive because all the way down in terms of the first word of the line and the second word of each line. So that's (SPEAKS PORTUGUESE)

Helena de Groot: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, so both parts rhyme.

Leslie Sainz: Yes, both parts rhyme. The music of it, and then the power of suggestion. I think in that last line of your door and the surprise of that sort of missing context of the you. I mean, you can read romance in it. You could read heartbreak in it. You can read all different kinds and textures of grief in it, especially with the image of the dead moon, you know, tonally to the twisted streets, there's something sort of winding and not quite catchable about the image, which I find so hypnotic. Yeah, it's just . . . I'll never forget that.

Helena de Groot: And do you know when you were aware of this part?

Leslie Sainz: Yeah, I think my father shared it with me. It was something that he was tasked with memorizing, I think, in grade school in Brazil. And yeah . . .

Helena de Groot: Oh, so huge. It's like, OK, it's three lines, they're inscrutable. You're not gonna understand, but it's just three lines, six words, you'll figure it out.

Leslie Sainz: Yeah, exactly. So I think maybe I first learned of it when I was, like, ten or so.

Helena de Groot: Wow, and you remember it hitting you then?

Leslie Sainz: Yes, I do.

Helena de Groot: Did you know, like, oh, this is poetry? Like, did that context, was that meaningful to you?

Leslie Sainz: I think so. I mean, I have been very lucky that poetry has been there, not just in the home, but in school for me at quite a young age. I mean, I think second grade, we were tasked with writing a poem about America, which what on earth does the second grader know about America, especially in Miami, Florida, in which in a classroom full of other immigrant children, you know, children of immigrants. So who didn't really know of America? But that was the assignment. And we understood that there was a sort of regional contest, I think, across the schools. And I was one of the winners.

Helena de Groot: Great, a little patriot.

Leslie Sainz: Yeah, I know. My goodness. My parents were so proud. Maybe more proud of that poem than anything I've written in adulthood.

Helena de Groot: You've won an NEA fellowship since, you know, just came up with your first book. Nope. You won that contest. Best patriotic poem.

Leslie Sainz: That's right. That's right. And it came with a bicycle, which my parents still have. I think the handlebars are melted in the garage from the Miami heat, but it's still there. It's still kicking.

Helena de Groot: This is not symbolic at all. Absolutely not symbolic. We're not gonna read into this.

Leslie Sainz: Exactly. Yeah, maybe it's too obvious. But yeah, so poetry has always been there. And, you know, I remember in graduate school, in a workshop, we were sort of tasked with . . . with reflecting on, like, the first time that we wrote a poem, and after sort of writing that first poem, what got us to keep going after that? And I remember feeling a considerable amount of shame that my answer was based off of a sense of external reward, 'cause that was the first poem I'd ever written. And it won a contest. And I got to meet the mayor and got a bicycle. And I was like, "If this is what I can do, this is what I can achieve. If this feeling can be replicated off of writing poetry, sign me up."

Helena de Groot: I love the honesty, though, that you realized that like, oh, actually that is what drives me.

Leslie Sainz: I think it at the time. Yeah.

Helena de Groot: Sure, sure.

Leslie Sainz: Because I can’t . . .

Helena de Groot: No, no, no. I'm not suggesting, although this is a safe space, Leslie, you can share, you know. I do not judge.

Leslie Sainz: I mean, I would be lying if I said that, that I think part of that self-awareness also comes with the acknowledgement that, yeah, that chasing that sensation—of which few to no other thing can give me—is admittedly a small part of perhaps the drive to publish, not to write, but I would say all the other things that can happen after writing. I get frustrated, I think, when writers can't admit that.

Helena de Groot: Yeah.

Leslie Sainz: So, I wanna be as honest as possible and say, "Of course, of course. You know, you think about that."

Helena de Groot: Well, you mentioned briefly that your father is an artist, right? Is it a glass blower?

Leslie Sainz: Yeah Yeah. He used to blow glass. Yeah.

Helena de Groot: Do you wanna read that poem? So it's the one called “Glassware” on page 17.

Leslie Sainz: I would love to. Sorry, I'm just, I'm looking at it now, and I'm like, Oh, gosh, OK.

Helena de Groot: Wait. Oh, gosh. What? It's on me. What is the feeling?

Leslie Sainz: So this is the poem that I think, across everything that . . . 'cause at the proofing stage, I shared this book with my parents, mainly because I wanted them to check my Spanish because I'm not 100 percent fluent. But this was the poem that I think made my father the most uncomfortable.

Helena de Groot: Well, why don't you read it, and then we can talk a little bit about that? I'm curious in the context of the poem.

Leslie Sainz: OK, great. "Glassware.” One, overhearing an argument, something beneath my cheeks like heat, like cowbells. I am at my most probable, most liquid. Suddenly. I come when called. Two, over dinner, a man, melting, sells American pillows through the television, the napkins are of the thick paper. The dishware all rounded the color of most bandages. I am impressed by my convincing father and loyal mother. Their face veins make clear they are not lying to themselves- not themselves. Faithfully, I am a large shard made of their smaller shards. If you were to turn my ears inside out, hot skin, sleep- only trust your family. Three, my father used to blow glass in California, sell plated jewelry from a dark gray suitcase. Have regrets? My mother worked for Eastern Airlines and ate very little. Now, my mother lives alone and with my father in Miami. My father lives with my mother and some days himself. Four, when I am hurt, my sorry skull vibrates, needs sleep. I was barefoot when glass appeared on the floor.

This time, most times rage to keep it company. When no one apologizes, my eyes roll out of my head as packets of fake sugar. Five, shortly after the revolution, children, students worked the sugar cane fields. I hear this because it is told to me in the kitchen by my hurt parents. In 1964, a 12-year-old boy named Arnaldo Carrillo was said to have cut 7,608 pounds of cane a day. Fidel holds still the record, 9,230 pounds. Six. Sugar appears in many American fantasies. The convincing 60s sugar glass made to simulate broken windows and windshields- I will never taste it. It doesn't harm the actor. It harms the actor, argues the Internet. Transparent, brittle sugar. When I study the 60s, other time periods, my eyes turn red, like from cameras or rum or furnaces or sand."

Helena de Groot: Thank you.

Leslie Sainz: Thank you.

Helena de Groot: I have a few things I wanna talk about with this poem, but let's start with the one that you sort of alluded to before you read it, that your father felt most uncomfortable reading this poem. And, you know, what you say about him is: my father used to blow glass in California, sell plated jewelry from a dark gray suitcase, have regrets. What about that made him uncomfortable, you think?

Leslie Sainz: You know, it's funny. It's not what you would think. And when he told me that that was the poem that he was most . . . most upset by, I suppose, I was, like, Oh, gosh, that's section one. There's so much more to be upset over maybe. His note was: I did not sell plate jewelry from a dark gray suitcase. But that image came from an actual dark, gray suitcase that we have in my childhood home. I mean, it's still there somewhere that is filled with that jewelry that he had sold, I think, shortly after college. And, yeah, it sort of perplexed me that that was the detail that really upset him. And I think maybe for him, the idea that he is selling it out of the suitcase says something about like a business integrity or an ethics rather than my taking liberties. That's not the fear. I think the fear is rooted in being presented as, I don't know, like a shady or distrustful character in business.

Helena de Groot: Right, right, did he correct the record? Or what was the fact, according to him?

Leslie Sainz: I don't remember, to be honest. I think in my own shock, I wasn't a good listener on that, on that phone call.

Helena de Groot: Yeah. Uh-huh!

Leslie Sainz: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: And was he angry about it? Was he sort of disappointed? Like, what was he like?

Leslie Sainz: Yeah, I think he . . . I think that there was maybe a little bit enough distance from when he had encountered it to when we spoke on the phone about whatever his notes or suggestions were, he had had enough time away from it that it was more . . . maybe a disappointment, which, you know, was I think as any child knows is worse than anger. Yeah. I think he was more disappointment in . . . perhaps disappointed in my assumption that how I came to know and see that suitcase in the closet in my bedroom as a child rather than a good faith interpretation of his relationship towards selling that jewelry.

Helena de Groot: Sure. Yeah, yeah. I wanna talk about how this poem moves, not just this poem, but like, you know, almost all the poems in your book. But here it's very clear to see because you have these different stanzas, they're numbered. And each one sort of locks into the previous one. With something more like association than I would say a narrative. You know, there's this image of you hurt, and when no one apologizes, your eyes roll out of your head as packets of fake sugar. And that, like, sugar word, like, triggers this whole other set of stanzas about sugar, which, of course, is so associated with Cuba for most of us, right? Shortly after the revolution, children, students work the sugar cane fields. And, you know, again, you go from you are hurt to I hear this because it is told to me in the kitchen by my hurt parents. So, again, there's this association. The parents are hurt, you know, And the next stanza, also, sugar appears in many American fantasies. And you talk about that, that sugar that was like used to make fake glass so that people can, like, in Hollywood fall through the glass and not hurt themselves or maybe says read it, I guess hurt themselves, you know? So, can you tell me a little bit about what is it about narrative that you mistrust or what is it you feel you can do when you let go of narrative?

Leslie Sainz: Oh, I love this question.

Helena de Groot: Thank you.

Leslie Sainz: Yeah, I feel very resistant towards narrative. I think . . . I think you hit the nail on the head with the idea that a bit coming back to trust and a lack thereof. I certainly think my poetics, and especially in this work, are informed by questions of trust and perhaps misplaced devotion or loyalty. And while I absolutely believe in the power of storytelling and narrative as a force of good, when that has the power to support our democracy in the right ways, I think I especially have witnessed the ways in which narrative can be misconstrued for the opposite outcome. I think that's one part of it. I think another part of it is I wrestle quite a bit with what belongs to me, I think, in this book, separate from conversations of once the work is out, you know, it doesn't really belong to me anymore. It belongs to a readership, hopefully. But, yeah, I struggled quite a bit with do I even have a right to tell these stories. And I was able to mostly get over that at a Canto Mundo workshop with the poet Daniel Bourgeois. I had expressed to him my fears around this project and what it would ask of me, and he replied so brilliantly and said, "Could you forgive yourself if you didn't write it?" And that kind of changed everything for me. I realized no, I couldn't. I don't think I would be able to sit with myself if I didn't try to find some way to tell these stories. And I think what associative leaps are, even a sort of elliptical does for me is, it excuses the faults of memory to a degree. So I know that we talked a little bit earlier about trying to nail down the factual details of my parents' journey to America. And again, because they're not particularly forthcoming about laying that all out quite clearly, I think that sort of signaled to me not a permission to make it up, but rather a permission to allow language and form to dictate what comes next.

Helena de Groot: I was wondering if you wanted to read one last poem. Let me see. Maybe on page 72, you have this poem titled “Malecon Miami.”

Leslie Sainz: Oh, yes.

Helena de Groot: And it's a very different poem from every other poem in the book. You know, most of the poems in the book have something to do with history, with the past. But this poem is not about the past at all. It's about the future. It's about the future of both Malecon. It's a boardwalk, right, in Havana?

Leslie Sainz: Yeah. So the Malecon is the boardwalk, but it also refers to the seawall specifically right there in Havana, yeah.

Helena de Groot: Right, right. The poem is basically about the future of these places in the face of climate change. And I'm just wondering, the past is hard enough to talk about, but at least those things happened and we have some degree of certainty about what happened. The future, by definition, is unknowable. It hasn't happened yet. And so can you tell me what was it like for you to write a poem about the future?

Leslie Sainz: Yeah, sure. I'm glad that you brought up the idea of certainty because I distrust certainty so much. And I think this, I would say that maybe I'm writing a poetics of uncertainty. I think that feels really true to me perhaps ironically and . . .

Helena de Groot: Right. Sorry. It took me a second.

Leslie Sainz: Yeah. It's like the only thing that feels true to me is nothing. And so I think with this poem, I was able to sit in some kind of certainty, I think, for a moment, which I mean, it's really towards the end of the book there's only two more poems left. So I don't know what that says, that there's just sort of one moment in which the speakers are able to exist in a predictable future or a knowable future to a degree. But I think what made writing about the future feel so kind of perilous, I think, is because of the use of the collective voice here, which is something that I don't write in very often. I find it very difficult to do, and I admire writers who wield it with what feels like stability and accuracy. And I think something that felt really important to me in this work was never assuming the realities of those on the island and those who themselves left the island. And this is perhaps a moment in the collection where there's a convergence that I could feel confident in this idea that those on the island, those in Miami and Florida in general, and so many other, you know, coastal locations that are under already significant threat from the climate crisis. Being able to touch that similarity from a personal perspective, I think was sort of healing, I think for me to write in that. I didn't have to question what that fear looks like. And so there's a kinship there, I think that it's an unfortunate one to share, but it felt like an important point to document is that it's not just here. It's there too.

Helena de Groot: Yeah, yeah, do you wanna read the poem?

Leslie Sainz: Yeah, I'd love to. So, this poem has two epigraphs. The first one is from the Daily Mail, and it says, "Cuban experts say Havana's boardwalk could be underwater by 2100." The second epigraph is from The Guardian, and it reads, "Many of Miami Beach's landmarks, the world-famous South Beach and the picturesque art deco hotels of Ocean Drive, will be lost within three decades."

Malecon, Miami.

So, the ocean refused to stay a tourist.
So, G-d doesn’t give with both hands.

We are wading in as little clothing as crabs,
brown bags,
brown bags with liquor in our wet hands.

Who could save the this in us?

More than once, we swam around dying
for a minute. A look to the heavens, spent,

sound of a crash, a currency, a beating.

We will miss what did not belong to us,
yes.

In wake of our absence, we submit
wallets of breath to the ocean floor.

Helena de Groot: Did this poem give you an opening to talk to your parents about climate change?

Leslie Sainz: Oh, I wish. Oh, I wish. Yeah, that would have been . . . That would have been a lofty goal. And I do think I held it at first, and then I think those hopes were sort of immediately shattered. They are loud dissenters, I think, around this. They, oh, absolutely. They do not believe in the climate crisis. And my father often says, "You can't trust a climate scientist because if there was no ‘climate crisis,’ they wouldn't have a job,” which is . . . which is just so incorrect on so many different levels.

Helena de Groot: I bet that that scientist would rather do anything else with their life.

Leslie Sainz: Right, exactly.

Helena de Groot: Be the harbinger of doom, yeah.

Leslie Sainz: Yeah, but I think that I share that because I think it's so emblematic of the skepticism that is so deeply rooted in their politics, yeah.

Helena de Groot: It's such a beautiful poem. I'm gonna cut it out and put it on my fridge.

Leslie Sainz: Oh, my goodness. Thank you. I love a good fridge poem. Right, it's not the happiest poem, but there you go. You know, I don't interview poets for a living because I'm the happiest constitutionally, you know? Right, yeah. And I don't write poetry 'cause I'm (CROSSTALKS).

Helena de Groot: Leslie Sainz is the author of Have You Been Long Enough at Table?, her debut collection. She's a three-time National Poetry Series finalist, received scholarships, fellowships, and honors from Canto Mundo, Miami Writers Institute, the Edward Journal, and Stadler Center for Poetry and Literary Arts at Bucknell University. And she is the recipient of a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship. Leslie Sainz is also the managing editor of the New England Review. After we talked, I Googled around a bit to find the author of that short poem with the twisted streets, the dead moon, and the door. It's by the Brazilian modernist Cassiano Riccardo. To find out more, check out the Poetry Foundation website. The music in this episode is by Todd Sickefoose. I'm Helena de Groot, and this was Poetry Off the Shelf. Thank you for listening.