Susto: Poems, by Tommy Archuleta
Center for Literary Publishing at Colorado State University
2023 | 94 pages
Tommy Archuleta’s debut book of poetry is defined by its title: Susto. When I learned the title of this work, a part of me was startled because it was a word I hadn’t heard in years. Susto loosely translates as “fright,” and in the book it is revealed to mean “shock” or “magical fight.” With Spanish as my first language, I’d heard this word growing up in central New Mexico, but its definition seemed elusive to me, as though the definition was kept in the hearts of adults, never children. I grew up knowing the word but never fully understanding its meaning.
As Archuleta’s book opens, it does not invite the reader in; rather, I felt more like an onlooker peering in through a door, at first open just a crack, but then open wide, revealing an interior with mystery maneuvering into revelation. A common belief is that writers often write in order to reveal something to themselves, and flipping through the pages of Susto, I felt the sense I was journeying along with the narrator through something important yet enigmatic. My experience reading this book is this: a glimpse into grief—real grief—and how it manifests without explanation; a dialogue.
Within its five untitled sections, Susto allows us to journey along with the poet. In a way, Archuleta was introducing me to the knowing of susto itself. As a native daughter to this American Southwest, growing up in the mixed Hispanic and Indigenous cultural and physical landscapes of the region, I’d always heard the whisperings of this concept of susto. Archuleta gives readers a glimpse into how susto can (and does) impact a body and soul. In the raw honesty of his writing, he helped me glimpse the truth of what it means to artfully explore suffering.
The fluidity of the book is punctuated by the positioning of words on the page itself, absent of extensive punctuation. Because much of the narration is in second person, I felt as though I were listening in on a conversation.
Sparce, intricate language opens Section I, and images emerge—the first lamb, a river’s edge, hands, one tree alive still, and—most dominant—mother. As the narrator speaks to an unnamed someone who we only later discover is his mother, readers are given entry into how susto embodies itself, how it surfaces and impacts the narrator. To experience surprising depths and levels of grief is a type of susto in itself.
I found the end of Section III most haunting, perhaps because the narrator seems desperate, crying out both to the holy and all the practices he’s tried. Yet grief remains:
María Santísima believe me
I’ve kissed
every baby
Jesus in this house
Doused myself with citron and
dandelion smoke
Swept clean every sill and threshold
with pine branches
cut from the gorge
Cut no matter how loud
and backwards
the voices got Now what
But even after such sharp images and words, Archuleta offers a remedio, a remedy, a softening; often not a “cure” but always an ease to ailments or pain. With this remedio, the poet offers hope even among our grief, our universal pain.
It is one thing for an author to reveal struggle and pain through creative work, but it is quite another to adjacently offer an invitation of remedio. In many ways, this is the gift of Archuleta’s debut book. Of the seven remedios revealed, most of them are based on references to regional native plants. Among the most striking was the remedio of the ocotillo:
To forgive one’s beloved for dying, pick the long, feather-like, crimson flowers in early spring, when the desert is in bloom. Boil in river water only. Let cool. Drink at once. Drink when waking, at noon, and at bedtime each day for three full weeks thereafter. If resentment persists, go to your beloved’s grave daily and pray for forgiveness until sound sleep and appetite return.
Reading the plant-based remedios positioned within the sections, I was reminded of the remedios of my mother, grandmother, and aunt, offered to me when I was a child; papas con vinagre on my forehead when I was sick, ochá tea for an upset stomach. Traditional knowledge is lost if not passed down and practiced, and reading this book reminded me of the power and wisdom of regional plants for both spirit and body.
It is only at the end of the book, in the afterword, that readers are given details regarding the situation, event, and reason into the book’s journey. In the wake of his mother’s death, a resounding grief strikes him. He states:
To love deeply is to grieve deeply.
With this knowledge, I returned to the beginning of the book and read it again, this time with a more defining perspective. Archuleta was of course intentional about this placement, giving me a detailed perspective only at the end, leaving the initial journey through the sections and remedios as mysterious and winding as any unknown yet curious road.
By researching the book and author—referencing other interviews and past work—I pieced together the sequence of events leading to these poems, beginning with his mother’s death in August 2013. Four months later, Archuleta began a master’s program at New Mexico Highlands University. During this graduate work he encountered the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders, which includes culture-based conditions, one of which was susto. Similarly, a late discovery of his mother’s books on remedios, which she used while practicing curanderismo, offered new questions and helped shape the book. In a 2023 interview, Archuleta further revealed that when he and his father were hospitalized with Covid, “the work started to look different.”
Considering the book’s timeline and creation, I was struck by the idea of writing as a remedio. As a writer myself, I’m humbled not only by the creative spirit of putting idea to paper, but also often surprised at what is revealed when I dare to be honest and open. Just as I admire poets who are able to distill emotion and experience down to their most honest forms, I wondered how the creation of Susto might have been healing for Archuleta.
Susto gives the reader a glimpse into grief, but not just any grief—it’s the kind of grief that takes a resounding hold. What it offers in return is an understanding of remedio, which in the end, distills into love.
Leeanna Torres is a native daughter of the Land of Enchantment, New Mexico. While often disguised as an environmental professional, she remains always a student of both water and land, agua y tierra, and through her writing hopes to speak with and from that sacred sense of place that is inherent in the great Southwest, that intrinsic relationship between people and place, el Sagrado, the sacred.
Header photo of ocotillo bloom by Kris, courtesy Pixabay.
