In the eaters of flowers, her third book of poems for Saddle Road Press, after the much-loved Blood Sugar Canto and CUICALLI / House of Song, ire’ne lara silva writes about the loss of her brother, her adopted son. In her unique canto style she sings the stunned, broken months following his death, navigating grief, loss, loneliness, and the remembrance of joy, as she begins to re-assemble her life.

“In the eaters of flowers, ire’ne lara silva continually lifts the personal, the vulnerable heart and body, into the indomitable and the mythic. Turning hard-to-shake grief into human resilience and passionate commemoration (“we are eaters of time / eaters of memory eaters of beauty”), this reliably candid and fearless writer, a master of urgent anaphora and witness, addresses fellow survivors, curanderas, and family ghosts. The book’s ongoing floral conceit skillfully inks peace-granting flowers to a sense of sacred communion (hibiscus tacos!) and the necessary tenderness for getting along in this knockabout world.”

—Cyrus Cassells, 2021 Texas Poet Laureate