Angela Trudell Vasquez

In Light, Always Light is a book of poems that travels from the late 1800s to the present from Mexico to Iowa and all over the world. The poet stories her memories, neighborhoods and the history of her people and their journey living in the Midwest, the Pacific Northwest, and through her travels. In this collection her ancestors live full lives. They come back from the dead and speak through their graves and their own descendants. Forgotten while alive they live in these pages. The poet's second sense is apparent in these pages as is her love of life, her joy and her pain. This is an important collection by poet, writer and activist Angie Trudell Vasquez. This is her third collection and a portion of her thesis upon graduating in 2017 from the Institute of American Indian Arts, (IAIA.edu), with an MFA in Creative Writing specifically poetry. Poetry is a visual art form, and the white space in this collection, the spiraling of sound, the images and the diction are all carefully selected for mass effect. Craft is crucial, and form matches content in these pages. An avid student of history and politics, the poet muses on the current state of the world and the United States, and its treatment of migrants and immigrants in these poems and does not hold back. It is a brave collection of poetry and encapsulates our times.