Review: Cul-de-sac Angels by Michelle Emily Garcia

“But, like all writers, I am an archaeologist. I can’t help but excavate, never capturing enough.”

Cul-de-sac Angels is an anthology of poems and short stories written by the lovely Michelle Emily Garcia, one of my fellow classmates at Virginia Tech. 

It is an entirely different experience to read a book written by someone you know, particularly if it is in any way autobiographical. Michelle has a soft-spoken, but confident voice, and I could hear her voice saying the words while I read, especially in the beginning. But her pieces are for everyone, not just her fellow classmates that had a mere three (maybe four) classes with her, but admired her intelligence nonetheless. Her anthology is for anyone looking for an immersive biographical dive with a creative twist, anyone who wants to experience intense emotion with the comforting barrier of a page, or anyone looking for deeply personal writing without feeling in any way voyeuristic (you’ll know the feeling if you’ve ever seen the film version of If Beale Street Could Talk. I recommend the book by James Baldwin, though; it’s incredible). 

Michelle’s distinctive voice and mastery of language really shines in this anthology, her debut publication. To put it succinctly, she has the language of Shakespeare (referring to his sonnets) and the imagery of Donne without the pretentiousness (said out of genuine respect for all). She was remarkably good at adopting the voice of her child self and she had a way of using italics that was somehow original and meshed perfectly with her distinct voice. 

Her poetry and short stories did exactly what she said they would do—they bled. They shed tears, they gazed melodramatically out of a stormy window, and they gently brushed your hair till you adopted that floaty feeling of internal peace. 

Michelle admits that she’s “never gotten over anything,” and hangs on to memories, which allows her to give light to her detailed nostalgia in her poetry—a detailed nostalgia I can’t help but be jealous of. Her wealth of childhood memories deeply contrasts with my hazy, and incredibly selective, memory. I have the tendency to rush moving on from the past. Garcia may not have had a perfect childhood, but she found so much beauty in it, and I genuinely admire that. 

My favorite pieces:

• The entire second section
• ”Part III: Chapter Endings From a Book I’ll Never Write”
• “A Box to Strike”
• “Maybe I Would Pixelate”
• “Portrait of Eve”
• “Layers”
• “Today I Give Thanks for Simply Being”

Also, on a marginally random note, I can totally envision her timely poems about the events of 2020 becoming historical context when our future descendents discuss the pandemic. Although it was my least favorite section, because current events are exhausting, perhaps it will one day be in a Norton anthology with footnotes explaining the craziness during which it was written.