Silvia Bonilla is a goddess who uses her power to create mystical worlds on the page. Her book, An Animal Startled By The Mechanisms Of Life, (Deadly Chaps Press) is filled with lush, visceral poems that evoke the pleasures and terrors of childhood, and the painful process of growth. It opens on the mother and the family then moves into the feminine, into lust and redemption. Her poems illuminate the fears that make us whole, and expose our connection to the ravishing tortures of time. Her lines are short, potent and passionate; her vision is clear. So many brilliant emotions fill this book, it’s as if Bonilla is an Empath, tapping into our desires. In A Place Where Gods Are Born (one of my favorites) her heat and depth are so beautifully concentrated: