In Order to Extract the Memory It Is Of Course Necessary to Build the Room
Susana Plotts-Pineda
Steeped in legacies of political repression in Latin America, Susana Plotts-Pineda’s debut collection, In Order to Extract the Memory It Is Of Course Necessary to Build the Room, is a diorama-like reckoning with the weaponization of historical memory. Selected for publication by Futurepoem guest editors charles theonia, Uljana Wolf, and Elisa Biagini.
Praise for In Order to Extract the Memory It Is Of Course Necessary to Build the Room
Susana Plotts-Pineda’s new book is brilliant, powerful, affecting, and marvelously conceived. Its focus is on violences — of politics, economy, and environment. But its interest lies not in how violence operates, but rather on how violence is depicted, how it becomes an acceptable lever of capital... For all its theoretical ingenuity, however, what sticks with me about this book are small moments of intensity, pain, and clarity: when those on the inside of the frame speak back at us: when architecture disappears, when the forms vibrate with new forms, when sweat is indistinguishable from the data that determines how we live and what we know.
—Daniel Borzutzky
There should be a special name for the kind of rigorous, genre-defying work straddling the future of memory and the past of futurity. Bursting at the seams with lyrical invention and speculative possibilities, In Order to Extract the Memory It Is Of Course Necessary to Build the Room traces connections between empire; the techno-military-industrial complex; vulcanology (here standing in for geopolitics and attempts to control social unrest); museology, and memory studies.
—Mónica de la Torre
“Behind the wreckage of memory” writes Susana Plotts-Pineda in this remarkable debut, “one hopes to find more than just sealed documents.” Working from the histories and archives of Colombia’s Armero Tragedy and the M-19 revolutionary movement, Plotts-Pineda writes a Borgesian narrative of nesting dolls in which memory is seemingly all present and continuously elusive. Working in a mode of lyric and speculative undocumentary, Plotts-Pineda’s multilayered and multigenre book takes us to the edges of memory. The result is vertiginous and revelatory.
—Brandon Som
About the Author
Susana Plotts-Pineda is an artist and poet. Her poems appear in The New York Review of Books, Copenhagen, Works & Days, Lana Turner, The Brooklyn Rail, and elsewhere. She is currently a recipient of a Fulbright Award in Mexico City. In Order to Extract the Memory it is Of Course Necessary to Build the Room is her first book of poetry.
5/15/2026
128 pages, 6x8 inches
Paperback Poetry
ISBN: 979-8-98894399-0
LCCN: 2025951476
PRE-ORDER NOW
$22 U.S.Buy
5/15/2026
128 pages, 6x8 inches
Paperback Poetry
ISBN: 979-8-98894399-0
LCCN: 2025951476
PRE-ORDER NOW
$22 U.S.Buy
Steeped in legacies of political repression in Latin America, Susana Plotts-Pineda’s debut collection, In Order to Extract the Memory It Is Of Course Necessary to Build the Room, is a diorama-like reckoning with the weaponization of historical memory. Selected for publication by Futurepoem guest editors charles theonia, Uljana Wolf, and Elisa Biagini.
Praise for In Order to Extract the Memory It Is Of Course Necessary to Build the Room
Susana Plotts-Pineda’s new book is brilliant, powerful, affecting, and marvelously conceived. Its focus is on violences — of politics, economy, and environment. But its interest lies not in how violence operates, but rather on how violence is depicted, how it becomes an acceptable lever of capital... For all its theoretical ingenuity, however, what sticks with me about this book are small moments of intensity, pain, and clarity: when those on the inside of the frame speak back at us: when architecture disappears, when the forms vibrate with new forms, when sweat is indistinguishable from the data that determines how we live and what we know.
—Daniel Borzutzky
There should be a special name for the kind of rigorous, genre-defying work straddling the future of memory and the past of futurity. Bursting at the seams with lyrical invention and speculative possibilities, In Order to Extract the Memory It Is Of Course Necessary to Build the Room traces connections between empire; the techno-military-industrial complex; vulcanology (here standing in for geopolitics and attempts to control social unrest); museology, and memory studies.
—Mónica de la Torre
“Behind the wreckage of memory” writes Susana Plotts-Pineda in this remarkable debut, “one hopes to find more than just sealed documents.” Working from the histories and archives of Colombia’s Armero Tragedy and the M-19 revolutionary movement, Plotts-Pineda writes a Borgesian narrative of nesting dolls in which memory is seemingly all present and continuously elusive. Working in a mode of lyric and speculative undocumentary, Plotts-Pineda’s multilayered and multigenre book takes us to the edges of memory. The result is vertiginous and revelatory.
—Brandon Som
About the Author
Susana Plotts-Pineda is an artist and poet. Her poems appear in The New York Review of Books, Copenhagen, Works & Days, Lana Turner, The Brooklyn Rail, and elsewhere. She is currently a recipient of a Fulbright Award in Mexico City. In Order to Extract the Memory it is Of Course Necessary to Build the Room is her first book of poetry.
