Layla Benitez-James

Biography

Layla Benitez-James is an editor and translator based in Alicante, Spain, whose poems are forthcoming in the Bennington Review and the Latino Book Review. Other work appears in Poetry London, the London Magazine, Hinchas de Poesia, the Acentos Review, Guernica, Waxwing, Revista Kokoro, and Asymptote Journal. God Suspected My Heart Was a Geode but He Had to Make Sure was selected by Major Jackson for Cave Canem’s Toi Derricotte & Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize.

See Work

POETRY / Spring 2021

Wearing a Path

By Layla Benitez-James

We found ourselves without our grandfather. We found ourselves faced 
with stacks of naked women and reels of naked women. We found ourselves 

POETRY / Spring 2021

How Quickly Can the Soul Leave the Body Before We Say Bless

By Layla Benitez-James

Apples belong to the genus Malus. I stand with my hips pressing into the sink’s marble,
rinsing and twisting these sandy, gunmetal stems out of the fat fruit 

POETRY / Spring 2021

hoy los aplausos se confunden con las gotas de la lluvia

By Layla Benitez-James

Swifts do not guard their time; they do not linger. When they come 
back from Africa, we are happy. I was told to go back to Africa. The sea, 
that stupid slate wedge, sparks with such beauty. I feel lonely. A car goes past,

POETRY / Spring 2021

Today I Feel Lifted and Better

By Layla Benitez-James

Tell me you’re that somebody
who gets pregnant after living one month in an orphanage. 
Tell me you’re the one who has your baby a year later