Reimagining nature poetry

of entrapment in Benjamin Garcia’s debut poetry collection, , winner of the 2019 National Poetry Series. Whether a closet or the bellies of carnivorous flora, they work either as places of refuge or the ground from which Garcia questions social structures — racism, heteronormativity, cisnormativity, sex-negativity and classism. Personified plants draw attention to and playfully protest norms; the corpse flower, for example, is labeled a “goddess” and a “corpse in drag.” This disruption is reflected in Garcia’s choice of form,