“The silueta is the shape that Cuban-American land and performance artist Ana Mendieta made famous in negation and also references the sculptures of women found across so many different ancient cultures. It is both the goddess and everywoman; it is featureless, just a body—or in Mendieta’s take the body emptied (or outlined or echoed) in presence and absence and part of an artistic collaboration of care across time. This poem, part of a larger section called ‘If I Am a Silueta’ moves from the ‘I’ to the ‘they’ and is from a manuscript in progress, a poetic memoir called ‘Writing.’”
—Melissa Buzzeo