Corazón

I have been following Yesika Salgado since the release of Corazón. I loved Yesika’s personality and the small snippets of poems she shared on her Instagram, convinced me that I needed to add this book to my list. A few years pass, I find copies of Corazón at my college bookstore and contemplate buying a copy. I decide not to. Yesika releases Tesoro in 2018 and Hermosa this year.

Finally, I decide to purchase Corazón after catching a sale in September. And I wish I had read it while I was in college and yearning for Latinx voices in literature.

Corazón contains a collection of love poems ranging from ex-lovers, family, loss, El Salvador, and Yesika’s life in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Silverlake. But most importantly, Corazón explores Yesika’s life as a fat, brown, Salvadorean, poet. Yesika provides a very unique and much-needed voice to poetry.

The majority of Corazón’s poems deal with ex-lovers ranging from fuck boys to happy and hard moments in relationships. However, Corazón did not speak to me on the romantic level.

I have never had to heal from a breakup, nor have I spent nights missing an ex, however, the nostalgic elements of Corazón, touched my heart. These moments include drinking café con conchas, watching parents carefully slice thorns off of nopales, and even picking Mangos at a grandparent’s house. These are all moments I have of my childhood. Although Yesika’s memories are of Salvador, and mine is of Mexico, I think this resemblance in our lives is pretty cool. 

One of the reasons I loved Corazón, was that Yesika has a way of capturing moments that make you feel like you lived through them too.

By dividing Corazón into different sections, poems follow Yesika’s path to heal herself. In this sense Corazón is very similar to Rupi Kaur’s, “Milk and Honey” and for fans of that collection I would recommend Corazón.

Until next time continue living in libros,

Gaby