The Half That Runs - by Luz Schweig (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The poems in this debut collection are strung together by an eventful survival narrative that resists assimilation and draws from Indigenous roots and nostalgia for place. Set in Mexico-Tenochtitlan and border towns, these poems address the lingering effects of historical invasions and displacement from one's homeland through the intimate lens of family estrangement, fragmentation and the resultant grief. Luz Schweig negotiates the tension between native and immigrant experiences by weaving Spanish and Nahuatl words into English verse that, ultimately and joyfully, celebrates identity complexities and ancestry beyond generational trauma.

Review Quotes

Deft, deep, divine. The finely layered poems in this debut book fulfill the poet's "wish to be so tenderly freed." Here are poems de la indigena, the migrant, those exiled in their own land, those of the great crossing, "from the half that runs"-as "each spring we follow / the bloodstains of those that ran before us." Here are poems for those "mixed like mole poblano / metamorphed under the grind" with "25 million slaughtered / ancestors in (our) genes." These Chicana poems, "verdant brown," are simply excellent-and healing.

-Lorna Dee Cervantes, Seminal Chumash-Chicana poet & activist, Multi-award-winning author of Emplumada

"I was born of red sierra clay / from Lake Texcoco's womb; / of chilis and hibiscus flowers, / dried and pressed to extract savory juice," Luz Schweig declares, beginning these poems of beginning, drawing out in exquisite sensory detail how a gentle fruit or many petaled flower comes into being. Birth and death, conquest and survival revolve, folding in and out of each other: "In the nopal field, once / we found a shriveled / umbilical cord, hint / of an infant, womb, life / bursting forth at its own pace." Schweig calls the medicine in the sweet rain "Flashing genocide out of my cells, / One mazehualiztli at a time." -ire'ne lara silva, author of the eaters of flowers, Texas State Poet Laureate 2023

In the debut poetry collection, The Half That Runs, by Luz Schweig, we see the poet's origins, "Born of maize heritage kernels," and travel with her to the United States, where they "...stopped speaking Spanish / on the other side." These are poems of celebration, survival and sound where, "The tumbleweeds make music," and we become aware of the poet's resistance and acknowledge her loss, "There, we knew how to cook for the dead," and "...With molcajetes, we mashed hearts / stuffed with the blood of truths omitted while loving." Throughout we see poems for her family and nature, and with the poet learn hard truths. There are many beautiful lines in these poems and snapshots of what it means to live in two worlds, "...hypervigilant for the sky falling." -Angie Trudell Vasquez, MFA, Madison Poet Laureate 2020-2024