Sons of Salt

Volcanic eruptions and waves collide in Yaccaira Salvatierra’s explosive debut collection Sons of Salt, which explores the duality of personal and political landscapes as well as legacies of violence within Mexican-American communities.

Sons of Salt poignantly captures the experiences of mothers who battle for their sons’ wellbeing, particularly when fathers are absent due to systemic oppressions.

Salvatierra’s verse breaks the bones of poetic form to bring attention to the failures of a conceptually western God who has categorically failed to protect His children, and gives birth instead to a god of nature.

Weaving self-made mythology, mourning, and maternal fear into visual and narrative poems, Salvatierra creates a collection that probes the deepest hurt to ensure the holiest redemption.

Born in Los Ángeles, California, Yaccaira Salvatierra is a poet, translator, and dedicated educator teaching for over 20 years while raising her two sons as single parent. She earned her BA at the University of California at Santa Cruz, an MA at San José State University, and an MFA at Randolph College. She received the Dorrit Sibley Award for Poetry and the Puerto del Sol Poetry Prize. She has been awarded the Lucille Clifton Memorial Scholarship as a fellow at the Community of Writers Workshop, and scholarships for the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, Bread Loaf Translator’s Conference, and Macondo. She is an organizer for the San Francisco International Flor y Canto Literary Festival and lives in Oakland, CA, where she teachers literacy and poetry to youth.