Press
"This afternoon I read Maya Sorini's new book, The Boneheap in the Lion's Den. A lot of poetry is about pain. This book is pain. Read it and you will succumb. Enter these poems and they may infect your dreams with Sorini's refrain: Nobody could / help me."
"Why is writing important to you and why do you think it's an important medium for the world?
For me as a healthcare worker, writing is the safest way to store memories, particularly memories of things that are difficult. The page has never asked me to stop talking about blood. It remains untraumatized. Writing is also a way to make a world you want, think through its foibles and triumphs, and turn that building into acting in your own life. Writing forces you be intentional with language, poetry perhaps more so even than prose. In a poem, I am pondering every word, obsessing over commas, because I am weaving a string of spider's silk from my own life to my readers'. I want it to hold up, to keep them safe, and to help them get to me. Writing is how I accomplish that reflexively human behavior of reaching out."
The Boneheap in the Lion's Den — Maya J. Sorini
This debut poetry collection is not for the squeamish among us. Inspired by the poet's experiences as a medical student and trauma surgery researcher, these poems examine the physicality of life with raw, bloody vulnerability. I especially enjoyed the ones that were patient-centered, such as "Eavesdropping on the Dead" and "The Lies." In a healthcare system that often makes patients feel less like people and more like cases to be gotten through, the poet's honoring of their stories is a necessary reminder of the importance of empathy in medicine. Sorini does not shy away from the discomfort of pain, death, or grief, and so neither does her reader; together, we bear witness to the many lives that mattered enough to fill these pages. I had the pleasure of being Maya's former classmate at Wash U and look forward to following her career both in poetry and medicine. A big thanks to Maya and Press 53 for sending me a copy to read!
"Maya J. Sorini is making her debut in poetry but she has a unique background for a poet. She received her B.A. in Chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis while engaging in clinical trauma surgery research. After finishing her undergraduate degree, Maya pursued a Master of Science in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. With her background in science and medicine, her writing has a different tactical but meaningful approach But she also shares her side of things when dealing with trauma and what she has witnessed.
Her first collection, The Boneheap in the Lion's Den, has already won the 2023 Press 53 Award for Poetry, and will be on shelves April 2023. Maya's poetry focuses on the experience of trauma from multiple angles: from the viewpoint of the victim, the survivor, the caregiver, the physician, the family, and even the perpetrator."
"The word that I believe encapsulates Maya's work would be intentional. Starting off the poetry collection is the piece, "Moratorium," exploring the necessity of "say[ing] what you really mean" when someone passes away–or rather, dies. This book, as seen in this poem, goes into the heart of what matters in medicine: say things outright, call out the system for what it is, meet patients where they are. For the most part, Maya's poems are shorter in length, which reflects the idea that she doesn't mind approaching hard topics face forward and daringly in ways that are challenging but of utmost importance to ensure reflection and good patient care. "
Maya J. Sorini of Bergen County, NJ, has been named winner of the 2023 Press 53 Award for Poetry. Press 53 Poetry Series Editor Tom Lombardo selected Maya's manuscript, Bleeding Experiments, from a field of 383 entries by poets in 44 US states and Washington, DC.
Tom said of Bleeding Experiments: "These poems take the reader on a journey through the narrator's own body then outward into the trauma surgery wards where she works. What struck me was the poet's unsparing honesty and compassion."
Piece about the Walt Whitman Association's 203rd birthday party, where Maya was the keynote speaker, May 28, 2022.
Interview with Frontline Arts May 23, 2022.
Profile for Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, January 12, 2022.