Jenna Velez
Reviews
A Quote on Jenna Velez's Poetry by Afieya Kipp
"No one makes it out of a Jenna Velez poem the same as when they came. You’ll drink blood and sweat, burn alive and die, become reborn, ascend to a sweet heaven, prefer hell, and like it. Too often, in poetry, we speak ill of the grotesque, but Velez’s work is far too hypnotizing, her prowess too spellbinding, to not look at the bones, the marred body, the soul left to drip before you, and not hold the gaze of the beauty revealed in the work’s precious syntax, personified. Every piece of language is deliberate, and you’ll wonder why she failed to prepare you for war with a warning. But, then again, to teach a lesson, sometimes, is to catch a person off-guard."
- Afieya Kipp, Poet, Editor, and Founder of the former Vessel Press
- Afieya Kipp, Poet, Editor, and Founder of the former Vessel Press
A Review of "The Whore Madonna Leads the Black Mass" by Vanessa Maki
"Within this micro-chapbook is no shortage of gritty work that has "dark" imagery and descriptiveness. Velez takes what the squeamish would consider disturbing and makes it all into something glorious and bold. The Whore Madonna Leads the Black Mass is a chapbook laced in religious and spiritual ideas and no doubt personal. Do yourself a favor and sink your teeth into this easily devoured micro-chap."
- Vanessa Maki, Writer and Columnist at Pussy Magic, Artist, and Author of Decayed State, Sweet Like Limes, and The Chosen One
- Vanessa Maki, Writer and Columnist at Pussy Magic, Artist, and Author of Decayed State, Sweet Like Limes, and The Chosen One
A Review of "Bloody Spirit & Bathroom Ritual" by Cavin Bryce Gonzalez
"Jenna Velez takes us on an odyssey throughout the corpse infested bathroom of inner desires, traumas, and dissatisfaction. "BLOODY SPIRIT & BATHROOM RITUAL" slams readers on a diseased operating table and rips them open just to dance with their entrails. Velez captures an intimate space composed of tiles, granite, and flesh; "BLOODY SPIRIT..." wedges itself right between fear and desire."
- Cavin B. Gonzalez, writer, Best of the Net nominee 2018, founder of Back Patio Press, fiction reviewer at Pidgeon Holes, and former prose editor at Soft Cartel
- Cavin B. Gonzalez, writer, Best of the Net nominee 2018, founder of Back Patio Press, fiction reviewer at Pidgeon Holes, and former prose editor at Soft Cartel
A Review of Jenna Velez's Poetry by Effy Winter
"Try to admire the massacre / like the way I feel / a slab of meat on a steel table..." - My Exorcism
"Jenna Velez's poetry demonstrates forcibly her dangerous writing ability and talent for portraying the dark and twisted. She chants like a starving witch - madly - endlessly. Her vehement verse reads as a searing invocation, a razor-sharp howl to the gods that live within her. Velez begs for catharsis and the final act of surrender throughout her use of unflinching, macabre language - bleeding upon pages and into the heart of the reader like a raging forest fire. Her work is akin to the works of Sexton - precarious and unapologetic - inflicting sweet, poetic chaos upon her audience. A stunning force in modern literature, Jenna Velez breeds delicious work that viciously portrays the neglected beauty of the terrible sickness that lingers within us all."
- Effy Winter, Author of BLOODMILK and Contributing Writer at Rose Quartz Magazine