{"product_id":"whenmrh","title":"When to Go to the Taj Mahal, by Marcy Rae Henry","description":"\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003ePoetry, chapbook, 36 pages, from \u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: #2b00ff;\"\u003e\u003ca style=\"color: #2b00ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/bottlecap.press\/collections\/bottlecap-features\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eBottlecap Features\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eWhen to Go to the Taj Mahal\u003c\/em\u003e offers an intimate and uncommon glimpse into a Mexican-American woman’s life in Burma and India. Poetry and prose pieces travel from the ghats and meditation centers to Delhi and the awe-inspiring Himalayas. At times a philosophically holistic approach emerges, where consciousness, altered by opium or vipassana, impacts the spirit which influences the physical, yet Henry does not wax sentimental. She is as concerned with the vibrancy of India and Buddhism as with their contradictions.  \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003eLinguistically playful, the pieces imply an underlying seriousness:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eWe take off our shoes before going into homes in India to avoid dragging in dirt. Shoes are zapatos in Spanish, but Zapatas are not female shoes.  Zapata was half Spanish and half Indian, but not from India. Indio.  Mestizo. We have a hard time explaining this in India. When we try to describe his saying about preferring to die standing to living on his knees, it sounds like he didn’t want to pray.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003eAddressing the importance of naming, inside and outside of meditation, a narrator tells Sona, a young Himachal girl whose name means gold in Hindi:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003egold is\u003c\/em\u003e oro \u003cem\u003een español\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003esonar \u003cem\u003eis to sound\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003esonarse la nariz \u003cem\u003eto blow the nose\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003esoñar \u003cem\u003eto dream\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eand\u003c\/em\u003e sonajero \u003cem\u003ea rattle\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003eFormally inventive, this transcultural collection includes a diagram, a contrapuntal and multiple versions of a poem about seeing the Ganges for the first time. More than trying to get it just right with the latter pieces, the author appears to ruminate over what the experience might mean in her present world, where she recalls monkeys dropping from trees in the Kangra Valley to steal vegetables while lamenting monkeys in México dying from the heat. With other striking images, including women hired to cry at a Himalayan funeral, and lovers bathing on a Delhi rooftop, Marcy Rae Henry invites readers to see poetry in the quotidian as well as the spectacular and beauty in the ephemeral.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: #222222;\"\u003eMarcy Rae Henry is a multidisciplinary Xicana artist from the Borderlands\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: #111111;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e who’s had motorcycle crashes in Mexican-America, Turkey and Nepal. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: #222222;\"\u003eShe is the author of\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: #222222;\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e the body is where it all begins \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: #222222;\"\u003e(Querencia Press), \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: #222222;\"\u003e\u003ci\u003edream life of night owls\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: #222222;\"\u003e (Open Country Press), and \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: #222222;\"\u003e\u003ci\u003eWe Are Primary Colors\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: #222222;\"\u003e (DoubleCross Press). Her poetry collection, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: #222222;\"\u003e\u003ci\u003edeath is a mariachi,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: #222222;\"\u003e won the May Sarton NH Poetry Prize and will be published spring 2025. Her work has received a Chicago Community Arts Assistance Grant, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, a Pushcart nomination, first prize in Suburbia’s Novel Excerpt Contest and Kaveh Akbar recently chose her fiction collection as a finalist for the George Garrett Fiction Prize. MRae is a professor of English, literature and creative writing at Wright College Chicago, a Hispanic Serving Institution, where she serves as Coordinator of the Latin American Latino\/x Studies Program and received Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society’s 2023-2024 Outstanding Educator Award. She is digital minimalist with no social media accounts. marcyraehenry.com\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Marcy Rae Henry","offers":[{"title":"Print Chapbook","offer_id":50316962103611,"sku":"WHENMRH","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital Download (PDF)","offer_id":50316962136379,"sku":"WHENMRHe","price":3.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0062\/4420\/4614\/files\/tajfront.png?v=1747841285","url":"https:\/\/bottlecap.press\/products\/whenmrh","provider":"Bottlecap Press","version":"1.0","type":"link"}