Angela Narciso Torres

[A FORMAL FEELING COMES—]

A tyranny of rain. 
Beneath wet leaves

formless amphibians 
move in geologic time.

How do you span the abyss 
of abandoned rooms, a mother’s 

forgetting? Somewhere 
each year, by the depth 

of a sheet of paper, 
a broad river rises. 

Angela Narciso Torres is the author of Blood Orange (Willow Books Literature Award for Poetry), To the Bone (Sundress Publications, 2020) and What Happens Is Neither (Four Way Books, 2021). Recent work appears in POETRY, Missouri Review, and Cortland Review. A graduate of Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers and Harvard Graduate School of Education, Angela has received fellowships from Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Illinois Arts Council, and Ragdale Foundation. She serves as a senior and reviews editor for RHINO Poetry. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Manila, she resides in Southern California.