Variations in Blue - by Adela Najarro (Paperback)

About the Book

"The poems in Variations in Blue address the aftermath of domestic violence through the transformative power of language, leading to healing and empowerment via the author's journey into her Latine/x culture. The poems in Variations in Blue cycle through the traumatic residue of dysfunctional relationships, the complexities of Latinx representation through a series of ekphrastic poems, and reimagine Nicaragua as a homeland set in a volcanic landscape. Each section contains a series of poetic variations on a theme, and the poems reverberate and rotate through the indeterminacy of language. Najarro's Variations in Blue insists that the complexities of experience must be understood one version at a time, each distinctly unfolding its unique design"--

Book Synopsis

WINNER OF THE 2026 AMERICAN BOOK AWARD IN POETRY

AUTHOR OF 2024 INT'L LATINO BOOK AWARD HONORABLE MENTION, VOLCANIC INTERRUPTIONS - CALIFORNIA ARTS COUNCIL RECOGNIZED ESTABLISHED ARTIST FOR CENTRAL CALIFORNIA REGION

"This poetry collection is heart-led, a feast for the eyes, ears, and soul."--Odilia Galván Rodríguez - "Myths and loss, yearnings and magic"--Cristina García

The poems in Variations in Blue address the aftermath of domestic violence through the transformative power of language, leading to healing and empowerment via the author's journey into her Latine/x culture.

The poems in Variations in Blue cycle through the traumatic residue of dysfunctional relationships, the complexities of Latinx representation through a series of ekphrastic poems, and reimagine Nicaragua as a homeland set in a volcanic landscape. Each section contains a series of poetic variations on a theme, and the poems reverberate and rotate through the indeterminacy of language. Najarro's Variations in Blue insists that the complexities of experience must be understood one version at a time, each distinctly unfolding its unique design.

Review Quotes

"One right after another, the poems of Adela Najarro's latest poetry collection, Variations in Blue, are like the startling rat-tat-tat of not-so-distant gunfire or a sudden backfire of a car racing down the street. Her detailed descriptions carry us from a Nicaraguan green world where geographical and human volcanoes loom, from the deceptively calm rainforest to urban landscapes north of the US's southern border with Mexico. Her poems recreate the lush world of her ancestral home, populated by iguanas, pericos, crocodiles, warriors, and saints that walk among everyday people. The geography of these poems are portals to other ways of 'seeing.' They also contain many bones and are sharp-edged like glass or mountains and skyscrapers that tear at the sky. There is beauty, but there is also pain. The voices of Najarro's ancestors and familia call out from those verdant lands, wanting to be heard and reckoned with her place in El Norte. In these poems, so much is seen and unseen, but if you walk into her landscape and feel all the spaces between her words, you'll know you have been there yourself. This poetry collection is heart-led, a feast for the eyes, ears, and soul."
--Odilia Galván Rodríguez, author of The Color of Light: Poems for the Mexica and Orisha Energies and coeditor, along with Francisco X. Alarcón, of the award-winning anthology Poetry of Resistance Voices for Social Justice

"Variations in Blue is a meditation on how the personal is inextricable from time and place. Oscillating between what is, what was, and what might've been, Adela Najarro's beautifully wrought poems offer up myths and loss, yearnings and magic as richly depicted as the volcanoes of Nicaragua, her family's homeland."
--Cristina García, author of Vanishing Maps

About the Author

Adela Najarro is a poet with a social consciousness who is working on a novel. She serves on the board of directors for Círculo de poetas and Writers and works with the Latine/x community nationwide, promoting the intersection of creative writing and social justice. Her extended family left Nicaragua and arrived in San Francisco during the 1940s; after the fall of the Somoza regime, the last of the family settled in the Los Angeles area. She is the author of four poetry collections: Split Geography, Twice Told Over, My Childrens, and Volcanic Interruptions, a chapbook that includes Janet Trenchard's artwork. The 2024 Int'l Latino Book Awards designated Volcanic Interruptions as an Honorable Mention in the Juan Felipe Herrera Best Poetry Book Award category. The California Arts Council has recognized her as an established artist for the Central California Region and appointed her as an Individual Artist Fellow. She currently resides off the coast near Santa Cruz, CA.