Archivum (Pavilion Poetry, 2025)
‘Archivum is a work of encounter, an electric exploration of the spaces between self and artefact, self and city, self and history. Within its pages, the dead are bid to speak and the author is transformed by the exchange. Muñoz’s work is restless, kind, careful and deftly attuned to poetry’s power to make and re-make us; to the moment ‘when the secret is heavy yet light, becomes actual light / and you can’t stop thinking about it’ Sinéad Morrissey
‘Theresa Muñoz brings an immediacy to the stories an archive can tell, making them speak to us here, now. ‘Be worthy of this journey’, she says as she sets out, and the journey she takes us on is full of unexpected turns, the ‘snarl of what now’. She takes the reader with her into the wealth of encounters and human connections to be found in ‘paper gestures’. This is Archive as a buzzing, funny sweep of life, or many lives, told with pleasure in language and its unfolding gifts.’ –Imtiaz Dharker
Settle (Vagabond Voices, 2016)
“Theresa Muñoz writes with a questioning clarity, a precise observation of the material world undercut by doubts and feelings of impermanence. A sense of movement – whether of migration or language or light – runs through her poems. She has a fresh and engaging take on living in a constantly shifting world” – James Robertson, poet & novelist
“These poems skilfully ruminate on the strength and complexity of the human spirit, no matter where in the world it ends up” The List
“Theresa Muñoz, born of Filipino parents who had migrated to Canada, and who herself has migrated to Scotland, considers the impact of her background in Settle – a timely subject, given political events across the world in the past year. In the title poem, she deftly illustrates the estrangement of the immigration process. … [Muñoz] is primarily interested in documenting a certain sweet melancholy in her embrace of life in Scotland, and she is adept at evoking the urban landscape with a minimalist approach to description… [T]his is a promising debut by a heartfelt poet.” – Andrew Neilson, Magma 68
Close (HappenStance Press)
HappenStance Press: “Her mental geography crosses continents as she explores belonging and exclusion, home and exile. Although her tone is often wistful, the form is playful: the shapes and fragments of the poem on the page capture shifting, changing voices, many of them a little lost.”
Afric McGlinchy: ‘There’s a painterly impressionism here, of landscape, climate, intimacy… the whole is gossamer-like, tender, sad. The title of the chapbook, Close, with its potential for a secondary meaning, is poignant and apt. It is in the accumulative effect of this chapbook that Muñoz communicates her internal world, her fragile and migrant soul.’
Nuala Ni Chonchúir: ‘Muñoz favours a haiku-like simplicity of short lines, natural references and small epiphanies, though her poems are in sections and often run to two pages. There is definite talent here and she is at her best when probing and unpicking close relationships. More of that, and she is sure to produce further wonders such as the affecting penultimate piece ‘Hard to Know’. One senses a poet finding her stride.’
Colin Will: ‘Another excellent collection from HappenStance. Theresa is a new poet but she has a fine record of publication in magazines… Born in Canada and now living in Scotland, some of her poems (‘Travelling’, ‘Home’) explore questions of identity and exile with great subtlety and feeling’.
Nick Asbury: ‘Close’ is a good title for this collection, which is full of telling details, short one or two-word lines, and a sense of intimacy and vulnerability throughout. It’s also an appropriate word given the poet’s evident knack for a good closing line. In several of these poems, I found myself admiring the way she achieves a real ‘sense of an ending’ without resorting to the usual trick of closing end-rhyme.’