Latitude

by Natasha Rao, Ada Limón (Introduction)

Overview

Chosen as the winner of the 2021APR/Honickman First Book Prize by Guggenheim Fellow Ada Limón, Natasha Rao’s debut collection Latitude abounds with sensory delights, rich in colors, flavors, and sounds. These poems explore the complexities of family, cultural identity, and coming of age. By turns vulnerable and bold, Latitudeindulges in desire: “In my next life let me be a tomato/lusting and unafraid,” Rao writes, “…knowing I’ll end up in an eager mouth.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780986093838
Publisher:	Copper Canyon Press
Publication date:	09/07/2021
Pages:	96
Sales rank:	507,318
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Natasha Rao is a poet and educator from New Jersey. She holds a BA from Brown University and an MFA from NYU, where she was a Goldwater Fellow. She has received support from the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference, the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, and the Vermont Studio Center. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Poetry Northwest, The American Poetry Review, Narrative, The Offing, Rattle, and elsewhere, and she was a finalist in Narrative’s 30 Below Contest. She is a managing editor of American Chordata and lives in Brooklyn.

Read an Excerpt

from Ada Limon’s Introduction to Latitude





The poems of Natasha Rao employ that bendable beauty of language. At once searching for a clarity and resisting a blunt narrative, Rao uses a language alive with imagination, surprising imagery, and a sense of unending longing for what has been lost.

Table of Contents

Introduction Ada Limón ix

I.

Old Growth 7

Divine Transformation 8

Fullness and Hunger 9

What It Was Like 10

Radical Empathy 11

Vulnerability Studies 12

Abecedarian on Shame 13

Crocus 14

Jasmine 15

Daisy 16

For a Blue Page 17

In my next life let me be a tomato 18

II.

In the New Year 21

For a Gray Page 22

Warm Enough 23

Intimacy Fair 24

For my Brother 26

My Father's First Night in the National Defense Academy 27

My Mother's First Summer Away from Home 28

World View 29

Love Letters 30

Earth Memory 32

Chorus 33

Novembering 34

Decembering 35

Light Years 36

III.

Latitude 39

IV.

Type to Learn 51

The Truth 53

River Road 54

Haystacks 55

For a Yellow Page 56

Confessional Poem 57

OR 58

Another Spring 59

Waking Days 60

Small Pond 62

My Brother is Accused of Making a Bomb but Admits He Was Just Trying to Get High 63

What I Would Say 64

Diwali 65

Witness 66

Late August 67

Coney Island 68

Ritual 69