Sons of Salt

Winner of the 2025 International Latino Book Award and deemed one of the "Best Books for Adults 2024" by the New York Public Library.

Volcanic eruptions and waves collide in Yaccaira Salvatierra’s explosive debut collection Sons of Salt, which explores the duality of personal and political landscapes as well as legacies of violence within Mexican-American communities.

Sons of Salt poignantly captures the experiences of mothers who battle for their sons’ wellbeing, particularly when fathers are absent due to systemic oppressions. Salvatierra’s verse breaks the bones of poetic form to bring attention to the failures of a conceptually western God who has categorically failed to protect His children, and gives birth instead to a god of nature.

Weaving self-made mythology, mourning, and maternal fear into visual and narrative poems, Salvatierra creates a collection that probes the deepest hurt to ensure the holiest redemption.

Praise for Sons of Salt

“Sons of Salt holds the memories of water and of fire—those forces in ourselves and the world that are best at transformation. These poems contend with the tensions of form and formlessness, place and displacement, generations of family and regeneration. They keep dreaming their way back to the lessons we learned about ourselves and each other in the shadows of home.” —Traci Brimhall, Poet Laureate of Kansas

“Sons of Salt offers indelible proof that whatever breaks—even familial bonds, even the heart—can be pieced together again. Love is imperfect, fragile, but never ever lost. Yaccaira Salvatierra’s poems are inventive, dazzling, and achingly beautiful!” —Rigoberto González, author of The Book of Ruin

“A mythical interpretation of motherhood, selfhood, and the chimeric profundity of their meeting point. There isn’t another book like this that explores the complexities and fears of loving a son.” —Phillip B. Williams, author of Mutiny

III. PROTECTION

She opens her eyes & is blinded by the sun.
Once her eyes adjust, she finds herself walking
on a shore with an elderly woman she does
not recognize. “Am I dead?” she asks the
woman. “Yes & no,” she replies. She looks
past the elderly woman & sees a cliff with long
tiered balconies, rooms caved on the
cliffsides. Long-robed beings of light are
walking across. “If I am not dead or alive, why
am I here? What is my purpose?” she
continues. “Your purpose is to return to the
living & call out to them. Whoever hears you,
guide & protect.” [I think about my sons &
how they will eventually leave my side. I think
of my brothers, how they are not alone.]