Sasha Pimentel is the author of For Want of Water and Other Poems, a National Poetry Series winner selected by Gregory Pardlo. She is also the author of Insides She Swallowed, winner of the 2011 American Book Award. Born in Manila and raised in the United States and Saudi Arabia, she is a professor of poetry and creative nonfiction in the bilingual MFA Program at the University of Texas at El Paso.
“In Step,” our delightful October featured poem by Sasha Pimentel, carries us briskly with its tempo in vivace to the end of a 500+ word poem, which turns out to be, almost metaphorically, two long sentences that never end. The poem swings effortlessly in this textual dance with addicting contre-rejet enjambments to consider the body, youth, marriage, and above all, desire — the desire to “write like Rita Dove,” to “[know] the world is just about to give / you everything you want.”