Congratulations goes out to Los Ángeles poet Vickie Vértiz. Her poem “Already My Lips Were Luminous” has been published in the New York Times Magazine. The poem opens her new collection of poems Palm Frond With Its Throat Cut and sets the entire collection in motion. As Vickie Vértiz said in an Instagram post: “Aquí nomas, my poem from Palm Frond in the @tmagazine. Thank you so, so much Terrance Hayes, and to @MatthewZapruder for the encouragement.”

Plus, in The New York Times Magazine Terrance Hayes says about “Already My Lips Were Luminous:”

“I do not know the language of that place” underscores this poem’s striking balance of ambiguity and mystery. Much is said in the white spaces, caesuras, breaks. The unpunctuated five lines of the first stanza unspool suggestively creepily. The hands in car guts have a visceral intensity. The halting final couplet prompts a pause, a silence, a reread.”

Hats off to L.A. poet Vickie Vértiz. Her hard work and talent is paying off.