True Stories

By Caroliena Cabada

Inspired by various disasters, from climate change to the pandemic, the poems of True Stories whirl together extreme weather, isolation, and interpersonal dysfunction into a gathering storm of a book. The first poem, "100-Year Storm" foregrounds cyclical themes, asking readers to consider—again and again, over and over—the effects of interconnected catastrophes. When one storm ends, the next one begins. When waters recede in one place, they flood elsewhere. When we think we're ending, we're only just beginning.

 

Split into five parts named for the four stages of hurricane formation and the eye of the storm, the book builds in intensity only to suddenly provide precious moments of calm relief. Poems about unbridgeable distances are side-by-side with poems about deep friendships and romantic relationships. Shattered free verse poems that move across the page are interspersed with orderly sonnets and other forms. Guiding the reader through a maelstrom before leaving them becalmed, the book artfully reproduces the feeling of living in chaotic times. Intimate and all-encompassing, each line is a torrent of emotion and truth.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Unsolicited Press
• Release date: Jun 18, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224223169

Book preview

True Stories

Caroliena Cabada

TRUE STORIES

Copyright © 2024 Caroliena Cabada

All Rights Reserved.

Published by Unsolicited Press.

First Edition.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. People, places, and notions in these poems are from the author’s imagination; any resemblance to real persons or events is purely coincidental.

––––––––

For information contact:

Unsolicited Press

Portland, Oregon

www.unsolicitedpress.com

[e-mail]

619-354-8005

Cover Design: Kathryn Gerhardt

Editor: Summer Stewart

ISBN: 978-1-963115-03-1

Poems

100-Year Storm

Out of Season

Romantic Aubade

Feeding Friends

Is it nice where you are?

On a Bad Day

Waking Up During a Storm

New Passover

Aubade, Inside

What Grows in the Garden

I don’t want to die

Urgent Care

Hard Times

Staying In

On the First Nice Day

I have been burying

By the time this reaches you

How to Fill a Void

Sunset

A Short Storm

Manhattan Stars

Nocturne

Behind smudged glass, we sat

Today’s

Lessons to Learn from Herbicide-Resistant Waterhemp

Morning After

Yolanda

Futile Denial

I become a hurricane

The Last Word

Watershed

I imagine turning to stare into the face

Sandy, Scorned

How to Communicate Catastrophe

Pseudonymous

I’ve Bitten Off More Than I Can Chew

More the Merrier

Windfall

How to Be a Mystery

Getting Back to Being Myself Again

Deliberately

Emerging

First, ask

A Final Supper

True Story

Aftermath

Inflorescence

Geo Logic

Naming Conventions

Melting Cryosphere

Solastalgia

For Aaron: first.

––––––––

100-Year Storm

or a storm of a magnitude that has a 1-in-100 chance of occurring any

given year,

or the two times in as many decades my hometown has severely flooded,

or a hurricane that was not meant to hit Manhattan that hard,

or typhoons so nice they’re named twice,

or those same typhoon names removed from a list,

or a sure sign of the apocalypse,

or a storm that changes the scale by which we measure,

or another name,