Author Spotlight: Bianca V. Gonzalez Perez
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BLOODLINES by Bianca V. Gonzalez Perez | Flowersong Press | October 25, 2025 | Pages: 94 | ISBN: 978-1963245622
What are some key themes present in your book?
Blood(lines), heat, deserts, snakes, limestone, family, and the Rio Grande. I’m drawn to place-as-participant in a text. I allowed place and ecology have their own agency in this collection. How would the poems feel if I brought Southwest Texas into them? Could place convey something words couldn’t? There are poems in the collection that reflect the river through form. Line breaks reflect the crack of limestone. The poems introduce sizzling and swirling bodies of water. Thus, place becomes a feeling and a way to reach identity. I am able to feel multiple identities at once when I visit home (Artist, Mexican, American, Educator, Daughter of a rancher, Valley Girl, Desert Girl, etc.), which is ultimately a singular identity of being a woman from the Borderlands. I do not think this phenomenon would occur if I was from Central Texas, or even Oklahoma, for example. You will find quotes from Gloria Anzaldua throughout the collection. I honed in on her works while writing BLOODLINES because place was a prominent factor in how she identified herself. She allowed place to define and redefine her throughout her life, and I would want place to do the same for me.
Is there a connection to your past in your book?
Yes. The collection has two sections, “Leaving” and “Returning.” In the “Leaving” section, I think I was processing a shame that boiled under the surface of who I had been. Shame coming from trauma, being pressured into growing into someone I was not, coming from a house that stood behind our family’s flea market and being harassed about it in school, coming from a grandmother who chose to live off-grid. Now I can say all these things are beautiful. In returning, there is a sort of acceptance, but at the same time, a devastation, a breaking down. I became completely undone. You can see this in the form of the poems in “Returning.” Lines crack and break in reflection with the center of the poem. I see myself and my family for who we are, and now I get to cherish that truth for the rest of my life. Reckoning with the past has made me, the speaker, a stronger and more curious person by the end of the collection.
What was the impetus for this body of work?
I felt it was time to write about my maternal uncle’s death. I grew up without hearing or knowing him, yet my first memory as a little girl was his funeral. My mother was seven months pregnant with my brother when he passed. Now my brother looks like him. This is not a coincidence. I began to think about our bloodline and how the people we lose come back in a different form. In person. In dreams. So, it began as a collection tying my mom’s late brother to my own brother's life.
Then I became serious about writing about the experience my siblings and I had on our family ranch, which eventually extended to my parents, then my grandparents, and so on. Pretty soon, I realized that, yes, this is a collection about the trauma of my uncle’s passing, but it’s also a celebration of what our bloodline has endured. Place is a strong participant in this collection. Would our lives have been different if we weren’t from the border? Who knows. I like to think so. But I also like to think that place is everything we are.
What is poetry to you?
It changes with the seasons, but overall, poetry is a love form. I think a lot of us, including myself, are drawn to multiple components of poetry— the rhythm, the form, the breaks, the surprises. Poetry to me is a visceral feeling. The poems feel like they’re entering from the solar plexus then down into the heart chakra. I get chills, goose bumps, heart palpitations. That’s how I know I’m on the verge of writing something meaningful and exciting. Growing up, I thought everyone loved poetry. I later realized what a unique and spiritual experience poetry is. It took years to realize those electric sensations were a rare gift. The more I opened up about my love for poetry, the more I noticed other people didn’t feel the same way. Instead of feeling defeated by this, I decided to let my poetry be a love language. So, when I think of BLOODLINES and how I wrote it for my family, it’s a love song. Poetry is just love.
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?
I love this question. The first line of my book is “Held my breath,” and the last line is “I carry the light and dark of my people who came before me— and the unborn child I now carry within me— and I am unafraid.”
I wrestled with my mind while writing this collection. Some parts were difficult to expose. I was vulnerable. I felt small and unworthy while writing some of the poems. Who am I to expose my bloodline’s trauma? Who am I to write about the blood and the body? Is it safe, as a young woman, to write about the border and childbearing? When I say “Held my breath,” I suppose it’s me saying I’m not going to like what’s coming next. A sort of drowning within myself, diving deep into the parts of the self I couldn’t speak to anyone else about. The collection is about the continuation of a bloodline. I became pregnant after I wrote the book. When I was five months pregnant, I added in the last line before sending my polished manuscript to my editors. I felt so strong and proud. I wrote something that my ancestors didn’t have the space to say; I healed my family's stories through poetry, and now we can say something beautiful emerged from the loss and the suffering. We can daydream. We can reframe. We can imagine. But most importantly, we can move on. I felt this after I read poems from BLOODLINES that brought tears to my parents’ eyes. That moment was a relief and a privilege. After all the worrying and feelings of unworthiness, I could sense my words had meaning. As Cecily Parks states BLOODLINES is very much “a luminous homecoming.” I’m grateful to have written this and to pass this legacy down to my son. He gets to say, “My mother is a poet.” We haven’t had that in our family before.
Outside of writing, what are some of your passions or hobbies?
I love learning about nutrition. I was a vegan for a long time, but I’ve experienced many ways of nourishing my body. It comes down to being aligned with what is natural, whether it be animal products or plants (although I do tend to feel better eating plants. My husband says it’s because I hate plants so much.). I get excited going to farmer’s markets and buying local, in-season foods. I come from an agricultural family, so I know how important farmers are and how important it is to feed others. It’s about nourishment, lineage, and community. I’m also a certified holistic nutritionist and dabbled in freelance nutrition writing for a while. Who knows, maybe I’ll write a nutrition book one day. Before I had my son, I was also a hot yoga fanatic. I practiced in a communal space five days a week. It was transformative on every level. I’m excited to get back into it soon. And running marathons. Health and wellness are a prominent part of my life that I don’t share often, so I call it my alter ego. You can find me on Instagram @livingbyfruit where I share nutrition and wellness info. I’m also on YouTube (Bianca Vanessa Raw Vegan)!
Born and raised in Del Rio, Texas, Bianca V. Gonzalez Perez received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Texas State University in 2024. Her debut poetry collection, Pouring Poetry, was published in 2020 by Austin Macauley, LTD. Perez’s work has been featured in Juke Joint Magazine, Defunct Magazine, Harness Magazine, and elsewhere. Perez currently lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and son. When not thinking about her next poem, Perez is hiking, reading nutrition books, cooking, or studying.You can find her on Instagram @biancavanessa_poet.