Rena J. Mosteirin’s beautiful collection, Disaster Tourism, opens and closes with an alarm, her sharp pen biting for your attention from first page to last. We become tourists to Mosteirin’s world, her unwavering voice taking us on a trip through a series of snapshots of grief, injustice, and our debilitating world from her personal perspective. This triumph of a collection is a must read, its relevancy resolved.
These poems serve as accounts of violence, homelessness, and immigration all told from a keen perspective. Mosteirin’s candid and lyrical delivery encourages digestibility, but the heavy is broken up with sweet moments and memories. Despite the terrible things in the world, we can still endure and find joy, whether in big or small ways. Gritty as this collection may be, tenderness still finds a natural home in these pages.
A personal highlight for me, “Chango”, page 81, narrates a little girl creating voodoo dolls of her bullies and calling on the power of Chango, or Shango, a thunder god, for revenge. The imagery is simple but sharp, painting a moving picture of the narrator’s distress into the foreboding conclusion.
It will be difficult for readers to put this collection down. Mosteirin’s keen eye, honed pen, and dulcet narration have created a unique and unforgettable read for our current times. Become a tourist through Mosteirin’s mind and purchase a copy today on the Boa website!
-Boa Intern, Leah Joy
Disaster Tourism struck me for its duality — the frank, dizzying way in which Rena J. Mosteirin pulls readers into the dark spaces of our world, yet with a certain tenderness that surprised me. Mosteirin refuses to let us pull the covers over our eyes, yet she is soft with us. “Let me show you how to stand in the iceboat without tipping over / as the snow melts down” is Mosteirin’s plea to her readers. Disaster Tourism is a glimpse of reality, a breath of crisp ocean air, and a tender whisper that perseverance is not just possible but integral for us to find ways to live and love in this world.
-Boa Intern, Hannah Kailburn
