Game Over Books, 2020
 
“One of the things I love most is when a poetry book forces me to slow down, to linger in every pause between breaths and reckon with the awareness that Reading is, itself, an act of consumption. Cut Woman does just this. From “night // fall” to “day//break,” Igusti’s speaker forces readers to linger in the spaces both within and between words, bodies, and countries, even when those spaces do not yet exist: “altar of my body did i give you // a forever // i could not promise? // …// an altered kind of grief?” These poems slice, piece, project only to gut open. These poems remember despite Memory: “i purposely forget // the prayer for when someone dies // inna-illahi-something // i always remember how to start // grieving // but // never when or how to let it out of my mouth.” Dena Igusti is a poet of undying urgency - this is a bold, heart-shattering chapbook debut.” —George Abraham, author of Birthright (Button Poetry)