A Review of Let the Buzzards Eat Me Whole by Ingrid M. Calderón-Collins

Let the Buzzards Eat Me Whole by L.A. poet Ingrid M. Calderón-Collins, comes at you raw, unapologetic, heavy. From the first three lines of this poetic memoir, you know she’s going to be honest. This is her immigrant story and as she makes clear, she is in control of her own narrative.

I am 40,
I have saggy tits, white pubes and a story
to tell…

It’s evident Calderón-Collins will tell the reader the truth about herself, the entire truth, as she’s “lied my way through life not only/to others, but also mostly to myself.” This is in the untitled Introduction where she explains the essential reason for writing the book, for replacing the harmful “magick,” of making and portraying herself as someone she’s not, to a healthy, honest, truthful “magick,” “a magick that loved me back,” to make clear that her trauma did happen, that it’s not dismissible and to make clear the recursive process she uses to build a healthy life to avoid the setbacks trauma brings.

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Ingrid M. Calderón-Collins was born in El Salvador in 1979, at the outbreak of the civil war between the government and a coalition of left-wing military groups. It was a time of unrest and violence, prompted by socioeconomic inequality, where “men/[walked] around/in dirty green uniforms,” where “I’d hear shots go off.” At the same time she fought her own personal war, the kind she said that, “lived/in dark houses.” The sexual abuse began at age four when Don Chepe and his wife were left in charge.

“It started with a kiss,” and ended with, “his cock/in me.” At four, this was the prevalent war in Calderón-Collins life, not some adult conflict over important adult issues she was too young to understand and played out at a remove from her immediate world.

The opening section after the introduction is written in a verse that draws the reader in and builds. Information is revealed gradually, in the same way people learn about themselves. On one page Calderón-Collins writes:

cracked hands scratch
the softness
of her thighs—
he is gentle, a giant

Then, two pages later she reveals who “he” is—Don Chepe. But how and why was he able to molest her? On another page it’s reveled he was left in charge of her, like a babysitter. The pieces of her life begin to fall into messy place; what kind of world she was born into and the consequences from living in that world. And from the gradual reveal of information, Calderón-Collins deftly illustrates the lingering effects/consequences of her trauma, from Don Chepe and others, and how she carries it with her throughout her life. Even in many of her word choices, such as “scratch the softness” that enables the discomfort, the PTSD flashbacks, the self-hate, to resonate and linger in the full effect of their seeming contradictions, works towards developing an honest portrayal of how disorienting and disorganizing trauma is to get a hold of, in order to have any clear understanding of who one is, what life is, what a person deserves and how to be a functional human being.

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When Calderón-Collins immigrates to the United States with her parents at age six, and when she’s older, after being deported back to El Salvador, Los Ángeles, the city of immigrants, becomes her home. As a city of contradictions—its natural beauty and the ingrained racism that tinges the residents socio-cultural interactions—it mirrors who she is and welcomes her as is. Being told she’s special as she’s being molested. The city hints at what the second half of the book is about—healing.

It’s here in the suburb of El Monte that she first learns beauty is possible. But it’s a certain kind of beauty. “[H]uge trees and the huge yard…and love is only something for the/pretty girls, the white girls” because it’s “a quiet, perverted city…where a certain type of/immigrant lived/where we lived, this certain type of immigrant.” Quiet, assimilationist. Where Calderón-Collins language shines when she repeats, but rearranges, the two lines about “a certain type of immigrant,” giving this idea new meaning and depth. She rearranges lines several other times with the same success. However, this L.A. flies in the face that certain neighborhoods remind her of the familiar, comforting cultural aspects of El Salvador.

For many different reasons Los Ángeles has always played out as a contradiction, especially for the people who call it home.

Yet, at times, her use of language falters. Her constructions can be awkward, such as “[a] caring tongue burn” when sipping hot chocolate and discussing hypocrisy. Here, Calderón-Collins is again constructing a contradictory image, but instead, when read, it sounds as if the reader stumbles over the language, the flow and rhythm of the verse. However, such occurrences are minor, only briefly taking away from the new and deeper meanings she’s crafting and the comprehension of the poetic narrative.

Calderón-Collins’ healing truly begins when she crafts the image of rebirth, resets her narrative, two-thirds through. “[O]nce upon a time on a warm 9th day,” she begins, now taking active control of her narrative, of her life. Taking control, she reminds the reader and herself, is difficult because “abuse tinges everything.” No interaction is “normal.”

Her true work of understanding herself, from this point to the end, is powerful because her need for it is palpable and her use of language sorts through all the messiness and contradictions in pieces and steps. Gaining confidence from reminding herself that she does deserve the basics of a healthy life: real love by herself and others, the calm of home, of knowing who she is, not what the world says she is.

Calderón-Collins is creating her new “magick.”

Yet, Let the Buzzards Eat Me Whole needs to be longer. What would help this “magick” linger, both the old and new, is by inhabiting more of the specifics of her life she already includes, to feel and understand how they shaped, sustained or altered her. Most importantly, Felix Serria Montoya, an El Monte neighbor she calls “a saint,” and “the first man who treated me like/the child I was,” needs to exist in more than one brief section. Don Chepe’s impact lingers, but in what ways does Montoya’s? How, exactly, did he help her survive?

However, Calderón-Collins did more than survive, as a woman, as an immigrant, but most of all, as a human. What so many in L.A. have always done. And by telling her story unapologetically, Calderón-Collins emerges as a complete three-dimensional person. Someone who thrives.