[03/05/26] Pato, Chus: Sonora

Veliz Books, paperback

Translated by: Erín Moure

Publication Date: March 5, 2026

Publisher Marketing: SONORA holds the resonance of human life facing time itself, and an inevitable finality of voice. Here the voice is that of a feminine lineage; the death faced most centrally is that of the poet's mother, in a book dedicated to her daughters. Crucially, it includes the sound waves of her native language, the language of both her parents, its history of endurance, as well as the granitic fissures and domes of the place where this language, Galician, is spoken. This lineage cherishes others too, poets who keep Galician alive, and keep Chus Pato alive, even (but we hope not) on the path to planetary extinction: thus poems dedicated to Xabier Cordal, Alba Cid, Manuel Igrexas, Gonzalo Hermo, Oriana Méndez. Sonorous indeed is this voice of a woman who faces the flight of time and the planetary present, so that we too —wherever we live — can face language, place, and future. Pato's poetry makes all of us more fiercely and humanly alive.