Mexica Mix

In her new pamphlet, Latinx Mix, Marina Sánchez, one of the most distinctive poets from the UKs Latinx community, explores her experiences of living in Mexico, Spain and the UK.Through the arc of Family, Icons and Earth, she writes a profound, rich and well-crafted sequence of poems grappling with displacement, bilingual identity and mixed heritage, challenging cultural icons and affirming her relationship with the planet, rooted in her Native American ancestry.By turns lyrical, urgent, sensual and subversive, her powerful use of vivid imagery and language both voice the personal and engage the collective.Place your hand on this book and you will feel the heartbeat of the poems inside.Marina Sanchez’s poetry is charged with fervour and passion, and deep connection with her Native American, Mexican and Spanish roots – Nahuatl (Aztec) and Spanish tongues entwine to tell their stories, reclaim lost knowledge and celebrate their existence.‘What if language was a body of water…’ the poet asks. In these urgent and powerful poems Sanchez’s ancestral voices are in full flow, singing praise to life, the maternal, and the elemental. – Cheryl Moskowitz