Valencia Robin’s poem portrays a tense relationship between mother and daughter; perhaps each resembling the other too much. In desperation — and shock — the daughter says the worst thing she can think of to her mother. What follows is like the fall of a dictator, a coup, an end, an opening.

Valencia Robin is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice includes poetry, painting, collage, and sculpture. A recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship, her debut poetry collection, Ridiculous Light, won Persea Books’ First Book Prize, was a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and was named one of Library Journal’s best poetry books of 2019. A co-founder of GalleryDAAS at the University of Michigan, Robin has an MFA in Art & Design from the University of Michigan and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Virginia. Robin currently teaches at East Tennessee State University and lives in Johnson City, Tennessee.

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