This epic has no hero but flesh
which defies imagination.
From “‘Dearth-light”
Alt-Nature, the debut full-length collection from Saretta Morgan, presents a sharp critique of U.S.-Mexico border policies while putting those affected at center stage. Morgan composed her dream-like collection over a five-and-a-half year stay in the Sonoran and Mojave deserts, during which she focused her efforts on grassroots migrant justice and self-healing from the impact of military and carceral systems on her life. This unique and immensely empathetic perspective lends itself well to the poems, which move between tightly crafted lines and sprawling prose with ease as Morgan confronts the destruction of both our planet and the people navigating the border.
“First” acts as a prologue to the remainder of the collection, immediately establishing the fraught relationship between migrants and border patrol in its matter-of-fact opening: “We had very good reason to believe that the authorities were lying. Were not omnipresent. Which meant the authorities would at some moment arrive.” The brief poem encapsulates the inescapable fear of discovery that pervades stores of border crossings, but the tender image of migrants who “put [their] heads to the horses’ mouths” so they (the migrants) “wouldn’t be lonely” also highlights the grief that comes along with making a journey that, if successful, may separate migrants from their homes and loved ones for years, if not forever.
Morgan centers the weight of this grief in “Consequences upon arrival,” a series of poems that spans the collection. Together, this series paints a vivid picture of migration and life along the border. In the first part of the series, “Consequences upon arrival (i),” the speaker uses the collective “we” to describe the ever-present “voices advancing” toward the group. Against this haunting pursuit, the author uses vivid imagery to immerse the reader in the scene. We read of “swarms of fruit-sucking bees. They too on their way downriver to welcome the morning in a good way” and “pussing stitches.”
The poem ends with a jarring image wherein the collective learns “The most efficient way to release a dog’s bite is to…put a finger in its ass. Which demonstrates clearly the importance of context with regard to appropriate behavior.” These lines act as a rebuttal to those who criminalize and villainize undocumented migrants, encouraging readers to consider the context of their migration and the natural instinct to survive.
Near the end of the collection, Morgan includes “Whether the border looks out from eight hundred and gift eyes, or two, the MBQ remains few though on the rise,” a poem which acts as a geographic diary and chronicles a particular journey. Readers learn that “MBQ” refers to “the masked bobwhite quail” and efforts to reintroduce the species in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. She uses the MBQ population as a symbol for “the vitality of the ecosystem as a whole.” Each section of the poem begins with a set of GPS coordinates, followed by a prose entry.
The second entry in the poem introduces a contrast between the protection of masked bobwhite quail and women migrants, the speaker explaining that “If you look at a map of all the migrant women’s deaths recorded in Pima County” from 2000 to 2022, “there’s an empty refuge-shaped patch in the field of bright red dots.” The speaker warns, “don’t take the absence of an image as evidence that the refuge is safe,” implying that those who maintain the refuge have a vested interest in concealing the deaths of migrant workers within their boundaries.
Alt-Nature is a layered and complex window into migrant life, border policies, and the physical embodiment of trauma that people of color continue to experience as a result of settler colonialism. Readers come to understand how Morgan’s experiences with military and carceral systems connect her, spiritually and historically, to people along the border. This is a haunting debut, a powerful reminder of how art can, and should, resist systems of oppression.