Sweet Repetition

Reviews / Votes

"It's clear that Cruz's Sweet Repetition is determined to come at the world from a canted angle, a perspective that is by turns surreal, droll and slightly terrifying. . . . As Sweet Repetition suggests, it's not just poem titles that repeat throughout the book, but also images, ideas and emotional states, all of which grow richer upon rereading." * California Review of Books, on "The Best Poetry Books of 2025" * "If you've been reading Cruz's work, it will come as no surprise that Freud is at the center of her ninth collection of poems, yet here her palette is more dreamlike than cinematic, as she turns to the repetitions of the psyche, to the outward poetic repetition . . . Cruz continues to be a poet who understands the lyric's profound bridging of the psychological with collective resonances, and this surfaces as she drives us towards this collection's Brecht-inspired conclusion with the poem 'All of Us or None of Us.' She ends with his words-'all of us or none'-but begins this final poem in medias res: 'And we made a tunnel / Through the darkening Tunnel. You, me, / And all the others' pushing us through 'blackening / Gelatinous junk' as we are 'Swimming / In the warning / Of what was once America.'" * Literary Hub * "Sweet Repetition is exceptionally intelligent, profoundly felt, and intricately composed around reenactment and revision, transport and transformation, memory and wonder, and mystery. At its core is a vital and luminous language of justice, and Cruz works every poem to a sweet perfection. A great book by a great poetic talent." -- Lawrence Joseph, author of "A Certain Clarity: Selected Poems" "The spare and elegant language of Cruz disarms us as we embark on a journey through the ways in which thought and memory keep us awake at night, refusing to release us from obsession, taunting and haunting us, and nudging us closer to meaning-or madness. Sweet Repetition offers no polite resolution. Instead, it unleashes a cacophony of disquieting ideas and startling images, each 'Looping back endlessly / To its ruinous and glorious / Origin.'" -- Rigoberto Gonzalez, author of "Unpeopled Eden" "Cruz is a rising voice in contemporary poetry who is already achieving recognition for her intimate, philosophical, and quietly radical art. Drawing on the deep historical tradition of lyric poetry from Sappho to John Wieners, Cruz's work feels both timeless and timely, addressed both to eternity and to our most urgent political realities today. The repetition of images, archetypes, and obsessions throughout Sweet Repetition lends a metaphysical aspect to this poet's urgent address to our continuous present. Every time I revisit this volume, I discover new dimensions in its finely cut prismatic surfaces." -- Srikanth Reddy, Phoenix Poets series editor and author of "Underworld Lit" "Expertly employing her distinct, unsentimental voice, Cruz's poems dwell in the bittersweet and often heartbreaking liminality of dreaming and memory, where 'the movement / Of always leaving and returning' is most acutely felt. I can't imagine a reader who will not recognize the sensation of encountering in their own lucid but elusive dreamscape or remembrance a childhood or place of origin, 'a lifetime of cities away,' 'warped but beautiful.' Sweet Repetition is a prime example of the possibilities of lyric poetry." -- Rosa Alcala, author of "YOU"