Diannely Antigua

Dec 2, 2024 | poetryfoundation.org | Diannely Antigua

After Joshua Jennifer EspinozaWhy else would she lift her shirt every night to show the world her one milky breast? My sister says Wellbutrin sparked her slut era. I say, I don’t need Wellbutrin for that. The moon used to be on Zoloft, before trying Prozac, before adding Klonopin to her lunar chemistry. The moon is on Propranolol. She’s an anxious bitch, left to borrow light from the brightest orb around.

Nov 15, 2024 | swwimmiami.substack.com | Diannely Antigua

12/12 / Poetry Reading and Conversation with visiting poet-in-residence Nicole Cooley + local writer Caroline Cabrera / The Gallery at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7-8:30 pm EST / FreeOne workshop remains in our Workshop Series--SWWIM Lessons: From Prompt to Placement: “Surfing Submittable with Jen Karetnick – Keeping your head above water in the poetry submissions process” on 12/10 (register here).

May 14, 2024 | poetryfoundation.org | Diannely Antigua |Leonora Simonovis

By Diannely Antigua “This isn’t an apology but rather a confession: / I loved your body before I was born.” These are the first lines of “Someday I’ll Stop Killing Diannely Antigua,” the opening poem in Antigua’s collection, Good Monster, whose focus is the body, both wounded and whole, and the experiences that have led the speaker to see herself as a monster.

Dec 12, 2023 | coppercanyonpress.org | Diannely Antigua

Diannely Antigua’s Good Monster grapples with the body as a site of chronic pain and trauma. Poignant and guttural, the collection “voyage[s] the land / between crisis and hope,” chronicling Antigua’s reckoning with shame and her fallout with faith. As poems cage and cradle devastating truths—a stepfather’s abusive touch, a mother’s “soft harm”—the speaker’s anxiety, depression, and boundless need become monstrous shadows. Here, poems dance on bars, speak in tongues, and cry in psych wards.

Jun 30, 2023 | poets.org | Diannely Antigua

Diannely Antigua is a Dominican American poet and educator, born and raised in Massachusetts. She received her BA in English from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where she won the Jack Kerouac Creative Writing Scholarship. She received her MFA at New York University, where she was awarded a Global Research Initiative Fellowship to Florence, Italy.