the past is a jean jacket

<p><em>why am i nostalgic for the shitty times in my life?</em></p> <p><strong>Reminiscent of being in a heavily postered room with rock music blasting, Cloud Delfina Cardona’s debut collection <em>the past is a jean jacket</em> is a time capsule of a 90s queer, Latinx teenhood. </strong></p> <p>Cardona’s speaker explores their gender through sex and relationships, searches for belonging in their family lineage, and copes with depression using movies, indie bands, cigarettes, and Tumblr.</p> <p>Featuring compelling visual collages and inventive imagery throughout, these poems are firmly rooted in Southern Texas. Cardona brings readers to a jukebox on S. LBJ Drive, underneath a Catholic girls high school, and to “San Marcos sunsets above the H-E-B parking lot” with weighted and poignant reflection. Each careful line produces a soundtrack to a passionate coming-of-age and implores us all to be gentle, yet honest, with our younger selves.</p> <p>Evocative and blunt, <em>the past is a jean jacket</em> asks the essential existential questions: “where did all the wishes of my ancestors go? / what memory of me will play in someone’s head before i die for the final time?”</p><p><strong><em>the past is a jean jacket</em> was selected by Ashley M. Jones for the 2024 Hub City Press BIPOC Poetry Series.</strong></p>