Hôtel de la Providence by Maya Ribault

Hôtel de La Providence takes the pulse of childhood memories. There is a melancholic joy wrapping the poems, complicated by an energy of delight. For instance in “Alegría,” we are invited to crawl up “mud piles, down / steps, in sand, over pebbles, or stones, / soft and sharp” whereas “The Sailboat” steers us through waves of exile: we’re torn from the past, realistic about the present. This collection longs for a home, one the poet now inhabits only in her memory. 

–Monica Minott, author of  Kumina Queen

Maya Ribault’s bees buzz around her ancestors as she invites us to reconsider notions of place by presenting us with scenes we think we know re-mixed with names of nail polish colors and fisherman’s fears. Ribault gives us mansions that gloat and t-shirts that scream, while machines polish seashells and a cloud looks for a place to hide. These are poems of shimmer and movement. The words spark off the page.

–Rena J. Mosteirin, author of Moonbit, Nick Trail’s Thumb and half-fabulous whales