I have been looking into schedules. Even when we read physics, we inquire of each least particle, What then shall I do this morning? How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.
~Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
A
On the first of each month,
a guest writer
shares
how they spend the day.
xA
August 1, 2025: Dorsía Smith Silva
X
When Hurricane María hit Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017, Dorsía Smith Silva, age 44, started writing poetry again. As a child in Philadelphia, she was certain she would one day be a poet. As a teen-ager, she spent two summers at the University of Virginia’s Young Writers Workshop studying with poet Lisa Russ. But then life arrived, and one thing led to another, which led to a job at the University of Puerto Rico, which led to being a Full Professor of English.
Now her first book of poetry is out in the world. In Inheritance of Drowning, published in 2024, was a finalist for the Whirling Prize and for the National Indie Excellence Award for Poetry, and you can feel the power behind it. The poems are substantive and strong, telling the story of “the wind of loss” but also of the force it unleashes. After the storm, the words are bolder, lifting off the page of their own accord, the title poem asking, “How many ways can we drown?”
From “Driving in Puerto Rico (After Hurricane María),”
Barreling down streets full of large chunks
of black tangled wires, shattered glass,
and splintered stop signs,
I swing from lane to lane,
crisscrossing across the double yellow lines
like bursting lattices,
Now that the earth has fallen around me,
my car crushes all that is underfoot.
After the “weaponized wind” of Hurricane María—no power for days and weeks and months—the poet leaves, driven by one type of drowning into others…
From “When you tap the muscle memory of the blue tarp,”
Besides,
tears are not meant for brown girls. You have to
get back to your shift because there are bills to pay
and you want that return ticket, which isn’t cheap.
“Drowning in 5 Parts” opens with this:
We have always been drowning–
With sweat.
With fear.
With debt.
It’s this poem that begins the thread running through the rest of the collection and that answers the question asked by the title poem.
“It’s answer D on the test. All of the above.”
One section of “Everyday Drowning” lists the names of some of the Black people who’ve lost their lives in interactions with police and citizens. Dorsía placed the powerful, two-page poem “While Black” dead center and in landscape orientation so the reader must take an action and change the way they look at the page in order to read the poem, which begins,
driving while Black
entering your own house/apartment/business while Black
mourning while Black
listening to music while Black
In “Living In Puerto Rico Is As Close As I Can Get To Living In The United States,” Quiet “wears old house dresses and then comes to church on Sunday for doughnuts and blueberry bottom cake… Quiet would tell me to not make a fuss.”
Is that the same as invisible? Quiet stays quiet.
This poem ends with this line,
And when September comes, I don’t let the hurricanes holler alone.
Vincent Toro writes a fascinating Foreword that describes different ways to look at, and think about, In Inheritance of Drowning. The stunning cover below was designed by Mike Corrao using Winslow Homer’s Hurricane, Bahamas.
In 2024 Dorsía was selected for Poets & Writers 5 over 50 feature. “Being in my fifties means less fear of rejection and more trust in my abilities. This is the point where you feel assured to bet on yourself.” She is Lead Poetry Editor at The Hopper and has been a Best of the Net finalist, Best New Poets nominee, a Cave Canem Poetry Prize Semifinalist, and an Obsidian Fellow. She is the recipient of a Katharine Bakeless Nason Scholarship from Bread Loaf and Voices of Color Fellowship (Second Place) from Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. She is also the author of Good Girl (poetry micro-chapbook), editor of Latina/Chicana Mothering, and the co-editor of seven books. In an effort to increase the visibility of poetry by BIPOC authors, she is the creator of the Smith Silva Challenge, a reading challenge that highlights poetry books by BIPOC authors. She has also earned a Ph.D. in Caribbean Literature and Language.
.A
Come back on AUGUST 1st to read how DORSÍA SMITH SILVA spends her days.
