Clayre Benzadón : part one

Clayre Benzadón is a recent MFA graduate alumni at the University of Miami, former managing editor of Sinking City, and Broadsided Press’s Instagram editor. Her chapbook, Liminal Zenith was published by SurVision Books. She was awarded the Alfred Boas Poetry Prize for "Linguistic Rewilding" and has been published in places including MudRoom Magazine, 14poems, SWWIM, Fairy Tale Review, ANMLY, and forthcoming in Grist Journal. You can find more about her at clayrebenzadon.com.

What are you working on?

I’m currently working on my MFA thesis project, which is a manuscript-in-progress, titled “Moon as Salted Lemon”. This collection This collection of poems explores the transcendental, imaginative realms of identity, culture, family (including the mapping of Sephardic Jewish family history) and the self’s longing to connect more with them. The self also begins to find herself more empowered and coming to terms with queer desire and sexuality in general throughout the progression of this work. The constant delving of linguistic experimentation within the poems also allow for each theme to transform into more mythological, unconscious, and psychological entities that hold within them more subtle aspects of surrealism and wordplay. I am specifically interested in the concept of experimentation, especially with regards to messing around, translating, and including Spanish into my work.