The poetry of menudo

In Sasha Pimentel Chacón's Insides She Swallowed the award-winning poet debuts a complex palate of emotions and ideas in this her first collection. According to Marion Rohrleitner in the El Paso Times Chacón's work nourishes the soul the way menudo (cooked intestines) nourishing the body: it might not always be easy to look what's inside, but there's always beauty in what's real:

She does not shy away from looking directly at the object, and in so doing the poet uncovers its distressing beauty. These poems are not nostalgic invocations of a romanticized ethnic past, nor do they offer a shortcut to a commodified ethnicity made palatable for easier consumption. Instead, the poems are often uncomfortable. One would rather look away, but can't quite resist the temptation to look at the forbidden and distressing images, because of their sheer linguistic beauty and because of the many truths they offer.