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Poetry by Petra Salazar
Harsh Terrain is a fierce, intimate collection of poetry rooted in the landscapes, histories, and ancestral memory of Northern New Mexico. With unflinching honesty and a language both tender and unapologetic, Petra Salazar explores the wounds carried through generations—colonial violence, family trauma, grief, displacement, and the complicated inheritance of identity.
Moving through the arroyos, mountains, and radioactive landscapes of the Southwest, Salazar confronts the personal and political histories written into the land and the body. Her poems give voice to the dead, the forgotten, the wounded, and those who have survived against impossible odds. Here, the desert becomes both witness and healer, a place where ancestral spirits, childhood memories, Indigenous traditions, and the consequences of nuclear violence exist alongside one another.
Through five distinct movements, Salazar examines the complexities of motherhood, queerness, faith, mental illness, belonging, and survival. Her work refuses to separate the sacred from the profane or tenderness from rage. Each poem becomes an act of remembrance, resistance, and reclamation.
At its heart, Harsh Terrain is a testament to the resilience of those who have learned to make a home within the very landscapes that have wounded them.
Raw, haunting, and deeply human, Harsh Terrain reminds us that even the most unforgiving ground can hold the possibility of renewal.
Praise for Harsh Terrain
“In Harsh Terrain Petra Salazar has written of lands we traverse on life’s journey.”
— Ana Castillo
“These are unapologetic and remarkable poems.”
— Eduardo Corral
“They are a blessed offering from her journey to ours.”
— Levi Romero
Publication Details
Author: Petra Salazar
Publisher: FlowerSong Press
Genre: Poetry
Publication Year: 2026
ISBN: 978-1-953447-57-9
Cover Art: Octavio Quintanilla, Beauty Somewhere, from the Frontextos series River The Line (2024)
Poetry by Petra Salazar
Harsh Terrain is a fierce, intimate collection of poetry rooted in the landscapes, histories, and ancestral memory of Northern New Mexico. With unflinching honesty and a language both tender and unapologetic, Petra Salazar explores the wounds carried through generations—colonial violence, family trauma, grief, displacement, and the complicated inheritance of identity.
Moving through the arroyos, mountains, and radioactive landscapes of the Southwest, Salazar confronts the personal and political histories written into the land and the body. Her poems give voice to the dead, the forgotten, the wounded, and those who have survived against impossible odds. Here, the desert becomes both witness and healer, a place where ancestral spirits, childhood memories, Indigenous traditions, and the consequences of nuclear violence exist alongside one another.
Through five distinct movements, Salazar examines the complexities of motherhood, queerness, faith, mental illness, belonging, and survival. Her work refuses to separate the sacred from the profane or tenderness from rage. Each poem becomes an act of remembrance, resistance, and reclamation.
At its heart, Harsh Terrain is a testament to the resilience of those who have learned to make a home within the very landscapes that have wounded them.
Raw, haunting, and deeply human, Harsh Terrain reminds us that even the most unforgiving ground can hold the possibility of renewal.
Praise for Harsh Terrain
“In Harsh Terrain Petra Salazar has written of lands we traverse on life’s journey.”
— Ana Castillo
“These are unapologetic and remarkable poems.”
— Eduardo Corral
“They are a blessed offering from her journey to ours.”
— Levi Romero
Publication Details
Author: Petra Salazar
Publisher: FlowerSong Press
Genre: Poetry
Publication Year: 2026
ISBN: 978-1-953447-57-9
Cover Art: Octavio Quintanilla, Beauty Somewhere, from the Frontextos series River The Line (2024)