Plants, People, & Plots - The Verging Cities

The Verging Cities is NOT what you would expect it to be. You open the book and before you even beginning reading the poems, you are met by the dedication page which is pure and creates the setting for how the author appreciates the people in their her life. Even throughout her work, she carries others in which we hear about often.

In the first poem Crossing, Scenters-Zapico does an amazing job giving us detail on how her experiences with crossing can happen outside and before a border before the actual process. This poem is where we first meet Angel, who comes up often through the book. My favorite line, "We pose in faux fur with cigarettes for nightlife pictures, get vicious, and leave at 3:00 am. I stumble in my platform heels and stop - at another bar to get drinks one last time in a to-go cup" This line holds strong emphasis to just how unconscious they have to become before they cross the border to remove themselves from the reality of what they are doing. This reminded me of the movie "Sorry to bother you" where the successful Black man who worked "upstairs" ran to snort a line of coke as soon as he arrived at a party because he was one of the few there and wanted to move away from reality. Just like Scenters-Zapico, he did not want to come face to face with what was happening and being numb makes it easier to cope with anything. Another line following the previous one "I'm too white to tell and Angel looks clean enough, but one of us is illegal" also adds into the concept of wanting to be intoxicated so that it does not remind them bot of the reality they are facing.

Scenters-Zapico uses quite a few different forms in her work but I enjoy the majority of storytelling and metaphors that outline a lot of her work. I noticed she uses a lot of plants to describe features of either Angel or others. I especially enjoyed the use of outlining the borders of plants, the stems, and relating them to someone who reminds her of them or who acts as one.

When Scenters-Zapico is not talking about the actual borders, she uses the metaphor for everything else around her. Scenters-Zapico does not hold back telling readers about her love life, especially being madly in love with Angel. They're love is pure and brings life to the poems, reminding us of the people in our lives we have. The poem on pg 6 is a unique in that Scenters-Zapico brings math into the poem. I think this is a very cleaver way of drawing the relationship they have. Math can be hard and annoying, Scenters-Zapico uses math in the poem about Angel to illustrate how hard it may be to want to understand your loved on even when its okay not to. This poem is also filled with compromise and each working to not overcomplicate or overthink their relationship but enjoy the presence of each other. This particular poem reminded me understanding that even when you aren't on the same page with your person, you're on the same chapter.