The Weight of Desire

The Weight of Desire is a collection of poems by Jina Carvalho.

In this intimate and brave collection, poet Jina Carvalho invites readers to walk with her from her days as a young immigrant, as she navigated challenging childhood events, to the calm that manifested when love entered her life. We feel the deep pain of her experiences and see how she learned to dance and smile as the only path to peace. While her story is personal and compelling, its universal message will resonate with many. Carvalho's words will awaken and transform the humanitarian in all who read her poetry. What a blessing that she has opened up her heart to share her secrets with us!

Diana Raab, MFA, PhD, Author of Writing for Bliss and Lust: Poems

This small, succinct collection manages to capture the broad spectrum of everyday life -- desire, hunger, sex, friendship, humor, death, secrets of childhood and motherhood, and the unrelenting quest for love. Ms. Carvalho also celebrates the lives of two departed psychological giants and poets -- R.D. Laing and Edwin Shneidman --both poems are moving tributes.... Compelling reading and deeply existential, as is true of all good poetry.

--Joyce Catlett, co-author, with Robert Firestone of Fear of Intimacy and Beyond Death Anxiety

Jina Carvalho's poetry is gripping and filled with interesting vignettes that are moving, poignant and original. The sweep of topics range from motherhood to violation, to disorienting technology and most viscerally, to marriage, bodies and lovers. This is a compelling collection and one that carries you from beginning to end, through internal poetic secrets and through startling individual details into the great mystery of the universe. "The Weight of Desire " is an impressive debut collection gathering life's force in us all and infusing that spirit of life itself into the pages of Carvalho's book.

--Dr. Elaine Gale, Director, Antioch University Graduate School for Leadership and Change Writing Center

These are poems of passion in all its manifestations--sanctioned and forbidden, unrequited and reciprocal. In The Weight of Desire, Jina Carvalho reveals her secrets, many of which you will be unable to forget.

--David Starkey, Santa Barbara Poet Laureate, 2009-2011

A powerful journey from early childhood betrayal to self-acceptance through the gift of love. Of Portuguese descent, she tackles the cost of "Secrets", teenage suicidality, the joy of motherhood, and the breakup of marriage. "How many gallons of blood does a woman spill in a lifetime?" she asks. With her vulnerability and honesty, readers will hold her poems close to their hearts, finding many sides of their hidden selves.

--Perie Longo, Santa Barbara Poet Laureate, 2007-2009, author of Baggage Claim: Poems