Veronica Suarez’s Standing in the Luminary Dark is a spellbinding exploration of grief, mortality, and the mysteries of the mind. Each poem is a prayer for peace, a search for light among the darkness, and a release from the fear and uncertainty that permeates our fleeting existence. There’s something hypnotic about Suarez’s vulnerability as if you could almost hear her words whispered in the dark. Despite the dark themes, Standing in the Luminary Dark is alive with passion and magic, a well-crafted dedication to finding oneself and breaking free from the confines of the mind and the earthly body. As a fellow poet, I highly recommend it for anyone struggling to make sense of loss, anxiety, and their place in the universe: past, present, and future.
Liana Minassian, author of Solis Obitus
From the first lines, one is fully drawn into the magical, haunting world of Standing in the Luminary Dark. This collection is an intimate exploration of familial bonds, loss, and grief. Suarez also fearlessly confronts the torments of anxiety, OCD, and insomnia with a deep sense of compassion and vulnerability, which offers insight into our human condition. The poet’s voice is at times otherworldly, weaving magic out of fitful sleep, finding glimpses of the divine–inside a cupboard, in blistered shell, or cracked granite–and out of this alchemy lies Suarez’s vision of meaning in life and death. This vision is both heartbreaking and sublime.
Claire Ibarra, author of Fragile Saints
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Veronica Suarez received a graduate assistantship from Florida International University where she completed her novella in verse, Nights in The City Beautiful. She worked as editor-in-chief for online issues 10 and 11 of Gulf Stream, the literary magazine of her alma mater. She was a contributing writer for the Miami New Times' Night and Day section and has worked for many publications, including ReadPoetry.com. Her poetry has appeared in Seul Poetry, Barking Sycamores, and O, Miami’s Waterproof: Evidence of a Miami Worth Remembering. She also writes non-fiction and fiction and has a day job as a voice actress. She performs poetry for PoetrySpoken.com and her YouTube channel, VeronicaPoet.
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Ghost
Death lingers in the house like bees dissecting a flower. Everyone ignores it, tries to walk around it. Some develop obsessive compulsive disorders: everything must be clean, the carpets vacuumed of every inch of grime. Others busy their minds with measured days, alarms and bells: to keep their minds in measured spells. Others use sex as a weapon, feeling the highs and lows of orgasms. One thing is for sure: no one can control it. No one knows what it is, but someone has died, and his skull spirit remains in the house.