Raíces, Relics, and Other Ghosts

Raíces, Relics, and Other Ghosts is a lamentation for the loss of familial connection, and with it, the people and the history that are the seeds of identity. Using the life cycle of flora-plants, trees, and the complex network of roots that tie them to their native soil-this collection explores displacement. To lose a home. To lose a language. To lose connection to one's own ancestors. To lose a grounding sense of self. This litany of losses, mourned in Raíces, Relics, and Other Ghosts, creates a constant sense of absence. Explored visually, metaphorically, and linguistically, with Spanish and English entwining like vines, this collection is restorative, a reclamation of personal and cultural history that has been denied.

-Jenny Irish, author of Lupine



Raíces, Relics, and Other Ghosts is an ecosystem where every poem becomes an organism working together to grow back a buried history. A history sprouting life into the hands of an "orphan Boricua" searching for belonging in Puerto Rico's cornfields, rebellious orchids, guavas and platános, as well as in the stories of loved ones no longer here. This is a collection of poetry that declares, "Our histories and legacies/ could be groves instead of the tools chopping them down." And before understanding the self, S. Salazar confronts and grieves lost land, language, and family ghosts, because "How I handle the past/ is how I'll heal." Witness how roots dig deep beneath the soil the sun cannot reach, working its way toward the top of a mountain with a voice demanding to be heard and seen despite what is lost.

-Karla Cordero, author of How to Pull Apart the Earth