How Culture & Colonization Inform Craft, On Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico and Climate Change featuring Dorsía Smith Silva

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This episode features our conversation with Dorsía Smith Silva, which was live-streamed on October 19, 2025.  We chatted about her debut poetry collection, In Inheritance of Drowning (CavanKerry Press, 2024).

In this striking debut, Dorsía Smith Silva explores the devastating effects of Hurricane María in Puerto Rico, highlighting the natural world, the lasting impact of hurricanes, and the marginalization of Puerto Ricans. These poems also focus on the multiple sites of oppression in the United States, especially the racial, social, and political injustices that occur every day. Smith Silva writes with a powerful, gripping voice, confronting the “drowning” of disenfranchised communities as they are displaced, exploited, and robbed of their identities, but remain resilient. Written with unflinching language and vivid imagery, In Inheritance of Drowning reveals the many facets of the lives of marginalized people.

To learn more about Dorsía and her work, please visit her website at dorsiasmithsilva.com. 

Purchase your copy of In Inheritance of Drowning TODAY by clicking here.

Here's the list of Caribbean authors mentioned during the interview (information on each writer is hyperlinked in their names): Velma Pollard, Shara McCallum, Dionne Brand, Lorna Goodison, M. NourbeSe Philip, and V. S. Naipaul.

FInd Dorsía on Instagram: @dsmithsilva

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