Wishbones by Elena Montes

Name: Wishbones by Elena Montes
SKU: 156405
Availability: InStock

$17.99

“Reading Elena’s poems “Mi Media Naranja,” “Funeral,” & “Wishbones,” I find them both direct and quiet– speaking from the bone, the orange, the iron water– they resonate with an emotional clarity of vision.”

–Chessy Normile, Author of Great Exodus, Great Wall, Great Part, -recipient of the 2020 APR/Honickman First Book Prize)

Precise and vivid, these poems cut to the heart—honest in voice, sharply crafted, deeply vulnerable, and powerfully compelling.

–Mandy Kahn, Author of and performer of Gateways to Peace performed at the Getty and the Barrick Museums-Innovator of “immersive poems”-Best American Poetry selectee-American Life of Poetry selectee

Categories: Advance Orders, Bookstore

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Wishbones

by Elena Montes

Paper

979-8-89990-408-0

2026

This title will be released on March 27, 2026

In her debut chapbook, Wishbones, Elena Montes weaves together fragments of memories and photographs, reconstructing a childhood shaped by the experience of being the product of two distinct cultures, tongues, and economic realities. Against the backdrop of her biological father’s battle with alcoholism and her parents’ separation, Elena journeys from adolescence to adulthood, exploring sex, love, and friendship as she searches for belonging and self-understanding.

Wishbones asks: How do we revisit our past with the clarity and honesty it deserves? Which memories do we hold onto, and which do we reshape?

Her hybrid writing walks the line between fact and fiction, storytelling and memoir, straying from the mold of linear narrative and inviting readers to engage in the process of reconstructing history alongside her.

#spilledink #poetry #ownvoices #diversifyyourbookshelf

Elena Montes is a Costa Rican-American poet, fiction writer, and artist, originally from Los Angeles, California. She holds a BA in Liberal Arts with a concentration in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College, where she received the 2024 Andrea Klein Wilson Award for Poetry for two poems featured in her debut collection, Wishbones. Now, Elena lives in her adoptive city of New York with her partner and cat. When she’s not writing in her journal, she can be found cooking family-style meals for friends and sharing memories around the dinner table — an extension of her love for storytelling and connection.