Author Spotlight: Angelica Esquivel
Buy: Crying My Best by Angelica Esquivel | TRP: THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF SHSU | October 2026 | ISBN: 978-1-68003-491-2 | Page Count: 90
What non-living poet/writer had the biggest influence on your book?
It’s a toss-up between Clarice Lispector and Thich Nhat Hanh. My book is interested in both Buddhism and Mesoamerican spirituality, and Thich Nhat Hanh’s writings have had a huge impact on my practice of Buddhism, mindfulness, and my interactions with nature. Similarly, I view Clarice Lispector as a spiritual writer, as her work often deals with the sublime, inexplicable facets of being alive. Her characters experience tension between their internal and external realities, and that’s something I felt often while writing this book.
Can you describe the environment(s) where you wrote your book? This could be the room, the desk, the city, an MFA program, a fellowship, or any other environmental factor (you only wrote when it rained, you always wrote with fresh flowers in the room, etc.).
I wrote this poetry collection in different places across the Midwest–in Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois. A lot of the manuscript was written while I was earning my M.F.A. in Fiction in Bowling Green, Ohio. My fiction background is apparent in this book, as several of the pieces in it were previously published as either prose poems, flash fiction, or hybrid pieces. This reflects my interest in liminal places, both geographically and poetically–the places we pass through where boundaries overlap and genres blur. To me, these places are the most interesting and true.
Did another art form influence this work? Painting, music, dancing, etc.
Crying My Best was heavily influenced by the various creative mediums I use to express myself. Poems like “beadwork” use the imagery and texture of creating a beaded piece to explore what it means to create something in this moment in this world, and meditates on the responsibility of the artist.
This collection was also inspired by the work of creatives like Frida Kahlo, Chuck Close, David Bowie, Sarah Kinsley, Oscar Wilde, and Mary Ruefle, who have contributed to the cultural fabric of my life and lives of others.
You can often tell a lot about a book by how it begins and how it ends. What is the first line and last line of your book?
The first line of my book is, “—the—pattern—is—muscle—memory—now—”
The last line of my book is, “like helicopter seeds falling to be planted.”
What are some key themes present in your book?
The themes in Crying My Best are difficult to extricate from one another because they are so entangled. The web includes: mental illness, addiction, colonialism, whiteness, Latinidad, misogyny, neurodivergence, spirituality, sisterhood, creativity, desire, and something like positive nihilism.
What is poetry to you?
Poetry is a spiritual practice. Poetry is a series of questions. Poetry is a logic puzzle. Poetry is an engine. Poetry is an entry point to humanity. Poetry is a gentle razor. Poetry is a plea. Poetry is a bottomless well of fresh water. Poetry is the sky.
How did your relationship with your family influence your writing?
My relationship with my family influenced my writing in many ways. My mother was always a bookworm, always taking my sisters and me to libraries and bookstores, and this led to my love of books, art, and writing. My mother also had the strength to leave an emotionally abusive marriage, pursue her education, and become a leader in and out of the workplace. She shaped my writerly voice by teaching me to be self-possessed, purpose-driven, and critical of power structures.
My relationship with my father is more overtly explored in my writing, as many of my poems are about his alcohol use disorder. I use writing to cope with the anxiety, shame, and guilt I feel as a daughter who tried and failed to keep her father sober–because for a long time, I did feel like his sobriety was my personal responsibility, and his relapses were my personal failures.
I view my family’s shared story as a microcosm of the history of the “Americas”–our migration from Mexico to Ohio, our battles with mental illness and alcoholism, our indoctrination into Christianity, our machismo/marianismo, and our complicated relationship with Indigeneity and whiteness, are issues that many others deal with, too. I have seen on a personal and societal level how an unwillingness to honestly and compassionately deal with shared trauma only leads to more trauma, and I believe poetry can and should be a way to process in a way that is constructive rather than destructive.
Angelica Esquivel is a Xicana writer and artist from Fostoria, Ohio. Her work has appeared in Poet Lore, Barrelhouse, and Beloit Poetry Journal. She received the 2021 Zócalo Poetry Prize, the 2026 Prima Materia First Chapbook Award from First Matter Press for A Casual Apocalypse in Acapulco, and the 2026 VersoFrontera Prize from Texas Review Press for her debut full-length collection Crying My Best. She is currently based in Chicago. Find more of her work at angelicaesquivel.com
