DESCRIPTION

The Five Legs of the Cat takes the reader on a journey beginning in Puerto Rico to different parts of the world, on foot. The reader does not have to actually be on foot. However, the reader might start seeing legs everywhere, perhaps themselves having more than two legs, like a cat more than two lives.

In Puerto Rico there is the common idiom, “She is always looking for the five legs of the cat.” It is said when someone is believed to try to complicate matters by overlooking and overanalyzing the situation. This book leaves it up to the reader to come to their final conclusion.

The Five of Legs of the Cat goes from a more narrative and prosaic to more reflective and experimental style; from the mundane to the existential, the local to the international, the simpler to the complex experiences in life. It covers a wide variety of topics. The book can be considered an autoethnography, a poetic ethnography or an ethnographic poetry within the context of literary anthropology and native anthropology.

REVIEWS

“Each of these provocative, surprising poems pulls small phrases about everyday life, creating a cascade of meaning. There’s a glorious mix of English and Spanish here. We’re often challenged and amused. How Samiri Hernández Hiraldo mixes the shadow of a deer with her own fears shows fearlessness. We need poets writing with such talented honesty.”

—Mary Jane Ryals, Poet Laureate of the Big Bend of Florida and author of The Moving Waters  

“The reader will put the fifth leg on the cat in this brave portrait of a border-crossing intelligence— bilingual, bicultural—and its humane vision of our migrant selves. Samiri Hernández Hiraldo becomes a poet of the English language here and we are cheering.”

—Indran Amirthanayagam, author of The Migrant States  

“Samiri Hernández Hiraldo is a wise and humorous guide through the varied landscapes of childhood and religion, of Puerto Rico and the Gulf Coast, across the terrain of the body, navigating its joys and pains. We are altered by the journey.”

—Josephine Yu, author of Prayer Book of the Anxious