Ion Love by Julia C. Gaytán is an incisive debut collection of poetry that exists in the liminal space between crushing traditionality and nonconforming desire. Her pieces follow the metaphoric process of electrovalence bonding, equating ionic bond formation to romantic connections, both as circumstantial undertakings that can be explained by physical position and natural tendencies. Ironically, her prosaic scientific description of manufactured love creates a space where lust erupts as a natural byproduct to “ionic” connections and detachments. In this place of alteration, indignation and yearning take a leading part of revised chemical reactions that occur between an unapologetic self redefined and a world in search of unmediated compassion.
 
Julia C. Gaytán is a Xicana poet and math geek who spends her weekdays teaching and her weeknights exploring the city with friends, writing poetry, reading and watching anime. Julia grew up in Nickerson Gardens, a housing project of Watts, and attended inner-city k-12 public schools until attending UCLA as an undergraduate then graduate student. She holds majors in Chicana/o Studies and History with minors in African-American Studies and Political Science. It is in her studies that she fully began to understand her community within a larger world context and develop new frameworks to explore identities and realities outside of her lived experience while simultaneously embracing her identity as a Xicana poet. Her work is published in MALCS Chicana/Latina Studies Journal and The Waiting Room, an anthology by Nervous Ghost Press. Currently, she organizes microcinema screenings for Espiral Collective and participates in various speaking engagements around Southern California.