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Poetry that considers the nature of relationships in an age mediated by social media and impacted by violence. This is a collection of poems about how we find and cultivate love amid wars, including wars that often go ignored. Throughout Bloodletting, Kimberly Reyes considers how we define love and who gets to experience it, paying special attention to the ways that race and sex influence how we are perceived and valued by society. Through the voice of a Black woman coming to terms with her own perspectives on relationship-building, Reyes shows the damage that contemporary culture can do to women, and Black women in particular. Resisting passivity, Reyes's poetry cuts through pervasive doom scrolling, virtue signaling, and parasocial relationships, inviting readers to remember what care is really supposed to feel like.
About the author
Kimberly Reyes is a poet, essayist, teacher, pop culture critic, and visual scholar. She is the author of the poetry collections Bloodletting, vanishing point., and Running to Stand Still. Her book of essays, Life During Wartime, won the 2018 Michael Rubin Book Award. Her work has appeared widely in outlets including The Atlantic, Associated Press, Entertainment Weekly, The Village Voice, ESPN The Magazine, Poetry Review, and American Poets Magazine. A recent PhD graduate, Dr. Reyes will join the Creative Writing faculty at the University of Miami in 2025.
