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Letras Latinas, Part 16: The Evolution of a Poet

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Episode Topic: The Evolution of a Poet

Explore the intersections of art, identity, and resistance with award-winning Poet Laureate of Wisconsin Brenda Cárdenas in her second oral history interview with Letras Latinas, recorded nearly nineteen years after her first. Join Brenda and Notre Dame English Ph.D. student Karla Yaritza Maravilla Zaragoza for a chat about the dialogue between poetry and visual art (ekphrasis), the power of cultural identity, and the essential role of the artist as an activist.

Featured Speakers:

  • Brenda Cárdenas, Wisconsin Poet Laureate
  • Karla Yaritza Maravilla Zaragoza, University of Notre Dame

Read this episode's recap over on the University of Notre Dame's open online learning community platform, ThinkND: https://go.nd.edu/d1c0e4.

This podcast is a part of the ThinkND Series titled Letras Latinas.

Thanks for listening! The ThinkND Podcast is brought to you by ThinkND, the University of Notre Dame's online learning community. We connect you with videos, podcasts, articles, courses, and other resources to inspire minds and spark conversations on topics that matter to you — everything from faith and politics, to science, technology, and your career.

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Introduction and Guest Background

1

Good morning. Today is September 25th, 2025, and we're here in McKenna Hall in the University of Notre Dame campus. My name is Kazaa, an English PhD student at the University of Notre Dame, and I'm here with the lovely poet who has published and multilingual poems in her two poetry collections, boomerang and Trace. She has also been published in literary magazines and anthologies most recently in Latino poetry, the Library of America Anthology. Besides being published in them, though Fa Vanessa has also co-edited two anthology, including Resist Much Obey little inaugural poems to The Resistance. She's also a Ra Latinas affiliate sweetheart, having co-designed and co-taught the inaugural Master Workshop for ra, A Multi-year Latinas initiative and partnership with the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Uhhuh. Fabulous. Fabulous. But most importantly, she's Professor Emmaretta of English at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, where she taught undergraduate and graduate classes and seminars on poetry in the visual arts. She currently serves as the Wisconsin State Poet ate. Thank

3

you for being here today. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I love visiting Notre Dame because you have, you know, I think one of the kindest campus communities I, I've ever encountered.

1

No, no, it that, that means a lot to me too. Yes. Because I did not expect Notre Dame to be so welcoming.

3

Yes, welcoming people are helpful. people tend to be, I feel like for the most part, cheerful.

1

Oh,

3

yes. And

1

yeah. No, no. The students here make coming to work here so fantastic every day. Mm-hmm. But, okay. My task today, Is to conduct this interview, which will be archived as part of the Latinas Oral History Project, available for current and future poets and scholars to study and find inspiration. My interviews are usually cut in half. So we have the first half and the second half. This first half, we're gonna kind of look at your origins as a poet, but more specifically, we're gonna hone in on your origins with it, Fraus.

2

Okay.

1

So my first question in the introduction that I gave you yesterday at the Ragland Murphy Museum of Art, I admitted that I once thought that at Fraus was a crutch for poets who lacked imagination in their poetry.

2

Mm-hmm.

1

I now understand that frais can be a transformative interpretive process between the spatial and the temporal.

2

Mm-hmm.

1

What first drew you to Frais and what possibilities did you see in it that maybe someone like me missed at first?

3

Well, I, this, I'd have to go way back. Mm-hmm. In terms of, first, I think, you know, one isn't going to write in that mode unless one is a great appreciator of visual art. And I think for me, that appreciation goes way back to childhood. in, in the sense that I had. An uncle who was a visual artist. He actually was trained, in the Army when he, in he the, during the Korean War. and he, he was a commercial artist for his living. But he, you know, for in his free time he could paint and boy detail oriented stuff that every little realist, every little detail in there. And then, my father, worked in a factory. I mean, he never called himself a visual artist. Um, he eventually moved up into computers when they first came out, but he could also draw, like we would ask him, dad, draw this, musician. I love the, you know, and he would, he would be able to do the likeness. Exactly. It would look just like the album cover. Right. And I had, um, cousins who did, one of them, um, was, road rodeo. So he actually broke every bone in his body multiple times, uh, doing bucking broncos. But he also did the, leather tooling on chaps and saddles. beautiful detailed leather tooling. I had another cousin who was a leather worker. I had another one who's a fine furniture maker. And the, it's just absolutely beautiful. None of them did this as a living. None of them would've walked out into the world and said, except maybe my uncle. I am an artist. Right. They, but they, I had, there was that creativity there. And, and I grew up in a home where I had, um, I was, it was, multi, you know, two levels and my aunt and uncle were in it with me, and my aunt was incredibly creative. So we were always doing, they were more like crafts, not like kits, like of her own imagination, you know, reusing things to make a craft and, So I was always doing something visual. and she was also, um, like a, she wasn't a trained tailor, but she could sew like you wouldn't believe and would make three piece suits out of the remnants that were, they were being thrown away that my uncle brought home from the, you know, fabric store where he had worked as an electrician, you know? And so I grew up with it around me all the time, this creativity, and that made me really fall in love with art. we didn't go to art museums when I was a kid, but as I grew up, I started and, and just really developed this great appreciation for the visual arts. Now writing poetry that is in conversation with visual art or inspired by it, I don't think I knew a lot about the mode when I first started. Oh, I know what it was. It was living when I lived in Pilsen. And this was, I mean, about 1998 to about 2005. And, Pilsen in Chicago, a neighborhood in Chicago, that was at that time filled with artists. Artists. And so, and I was working for the National Museum of Mexican Art, and I got to know all of these artists. They became friends, and then it just felt natural. You know, I would go into their studios and they would be painting something, they would have their work all over the walls. And, you know, I knew them so I could have conversations with them about it. And then I just felt like I, I need to write, I need to write in conversation with this. and so I think that was a big part of it. I even before though, that I was doing some of it, but I think, you know, working for an art museum. Being around art and artists all the time really had an impact on, on making me want to do more. That's when I started to study the mode and look at what scholars had to say about it, what other artists, what artists had to say about it, what other poets had to say about it. And that's when I developed my kind of deeper knowledge of the, of Frais.

1

No, like, um, from your response, I'm like, looking back on my own life and I was like, you know, I grew up in a family of artists too. not necessarily in the same way that your family did. My dad only recently has like become like a carpenter and he makes tortillas and he is making all these like, um, mattress frames and everything, uhhuh. It's really beautiful, the things that he's making. But like when I grew up, all my cousins knew how to draw. Even my sister. Wow. I knew how to draw two, but I only drew Pokemon. Because that's what I would see on tv. I would go outside and I'd grab these rocks that worked like chalk, and I would go on the driveway and I would just draw Pikachu over and over and over again. But I wasn't as good as my cousins or as my siblings, who would like actually draw people, uh, and draw eyes. And they would even go so far as the Draw Dragon Ball characters framed on the walls in the house. Wow. And so I think maybe like my, my, my distancing with art had to do with my own envy, Uhhuh Uhhuh. I wanted to be able to draw Pikachu the way he moved on the frame. And, you know, it's, it's been fantastic reading your work and getting back into like, appreciating the arts and maybe even attempting to draw the way my family draws. So thank you for that.

2

Oh, you're welcome.

1

before egg process though, there was obviously poets and writers that influenced your writing mm-hmm. Or influenced your journey as a poet test. Could you name a few that you, you found influential to your work in your development?

3

I, early on I probably really started writing poetry in high school. It was awful poetry, but I, that's when I started. And, you know, back then I, I was saying this in a conversation the other night, there, the, in our literature classes, there was not hardly any diversity in the literature, like in an American literature class. About as diverse as it got was Gwendolyn Brooks and Langston Hughes, if we were lucky. But I loved Gwendolyn Brooks and Langston Hughes, and, you know, I also loved Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, who are very different, right. But I was loving my literature classes. and so I would say very early influences were, probably Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes, Walt Whitman, maybe more than Dickinson in terms of my own style. Although I appreciated what she was doing. and, Even o other writers like Henry David Thoreau, because I, I love being in the natural world. And so that was, you know, inspirational. But then I, the then, as I, you know, got out of high school and I was in college, even in college, the curriculum wasn't very, di curriculum wasn't very diverse. But along the way, I somehow got my hands on Lorna Diante, who was, who is, you know, uh, a Chicana poet. and when I started reading her work, I was Whoa. Wow. A also, Rista, right? and, and AA was writing Lorna d used a little bit of Spanish with her English, but she mostly wrote in English, whereas AA was writing in English, Spanish and code switching. And so I, I really fell in love with those poets and they were kind of gave me permission. To write about my own culture, my own identity, my and mixed languages and all of that, right? And so they were very influential early on. and then, more time as time passed, uh, Juan Perra, Juana is still to this day, one of my very favorite poets of all poets. And I read very widely. I mean, I read, we, I read a lot of, you know, Latina poets, but I read a lot of poets of all different backgrounds. And, uh, one, Felipe Perra is still, um, one of those at the very top. And for me, and I think it's because he is so inventive. First of all, he's so prolific. What does he have 35 books or something, you know? But he's also so inventive as a poet and was doing things no one else was doing at the time. You know, even in his early work. and he has a whole book of Ted poetry, um, responding to the, uh, or in conversation with the Prince of Artio Rodriguez. it's called like Cards No Something and Fortune. I can't remember the whole title. Something. And Fortune Cards. A Book of Lives, and it's, you know, it's Rodriguez's Print one Felipe's poem, Rodriguez's Print, one Felipe's poem. And you know, I, that's one of my favorite books of his, um, I've taught that book many, many times. It's beautiful book too. It's a hardcover small book. Oh, that's, it's small. Yeah. Okay. It's a city lights book. So it's that pocketbook size, but much thicker and hard cover and gorgeous paper. so it's just a beautiful object as well as, you know. and he is, you know, he is always been an influence on me in terms of thinking about, you know, what else can I do in poetry that's new or different? How can I, how can I say this in a way that's never been said? and so, and he is also just one of the kindest part people you'll ever meet, just a lovely human being can relate to all ages. I've seen him just wow. A crowd of little kids, you know? And, um, when I brought him to the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, there were children, families, lots of families came and there were children in the audience around me. And at one point this little girl in front of me was dancing to his poetry. This is one Felipe where he's magic. so that he is a big influence. but also I've mentioned the poet Craig Santos Perez. Now. I think he, he, there's nobody who knows how to put a book together like him or write a series of poems. And he writes work that is socially political, so sociopolitical relevant in those ways, but is not the kind of poem that's up in your face kind of preaching at you at all, at,'cause I don't think that really works right to, to change minds. so I really love his work. and, and there are so many more. There are so many more, but I, you know, we would be here all day. Really? Yeah. Just talking about influential poets. And so I'll stop there.

1

I'm, I'm very happy I asked you this question. I mean, it is my job as like an interviewee to kind of get to the root of what influence and what made you who you are. But it's also a very selfish question'cause I'm looking for more recommendations.

3

Oh. Oh. And I have to say I also really love the work of Cecilia Una. Oh, yes, yes. Oh, she was

1

here recently.

Performance Poetry and Artistic Collaboration

3

Yeah. Mm-hmm. She was,'cause I, you know, earlier I did a lot of kind of performance art as well. And not in her style, but still like the way she is a performance artist. She is a visual artist and she is a, a poet, you know, has always spoken to me. Her books the way she'll, she'll do something out in the natural world, she'll photograph it, and then she has these like strings of text. I, I've always wanted to do something like that. Mm-hmm. Um, so yeah, she's another. Influence. Mm-hmm.

1

I'm learning that we have another con commonality. I, I also did performance poetry a lot. Oh. I've performed in, oddly enough, museums, conferences. Yeah. Those are the two places. But I, I don't do performance poetry in the way that other poets do it, where they kind of like make the, the language more experimental and textile uhhuh. I, I like to be an actress. Ah, I will dress up as a, as a priest, uhhuh with a mustache and everything. Wow. And I will like, read these poems that kind of act as sermons. And then I take off my robes. I'm a, I'm a ra and I start, I start like speaking in poetry that's about nature and healing and, yeah. No, I, I, I go crazy. Well, I wanna see that. I wanna see that. I, I may do it next semester. I am trying, I'm attempting to bring up guera and a poet to kind of speak in conversation. Oh. And that poet is actually my mentor who I do a lot of performance poetry with. And so that may happen, and if it does, I will record it and I'll send it

3

to you. Oh, I would love that. You maybe identified last night then a little bit with the poem I read, um, that went with the, um, GUI Pena, that performance arc. Yeah. I mean, no, when you changed

1

your voice. Yeah. I was shocked, but I was very deeply impressed. Uh, no, that was fantastic. And you know, on, on the topic back to like artwork and performance, you've written in response to the artwork of some really well known artists mm-hmm. Like Anta mm-hmm. Whose photography and artwork as I know it, challenges gender and identity in ways that resonate deeply with a lot of viewers. Mm-hmm. And I also noticed that you've, you've written a to Charles Bojorquez whose cholo inspired Calligraphy Street art in the sixties, in the seventies mm-hmm. In California, you know, it's made him be known as the godfather of West Coast Graffiti. Mm-hmm. Which is fantastic. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um. You don't seem to restrict yourself to just well known artists though, which I thought was really interesting. Mm-hmm. You, you, you write a response to local artists a lot in the state of Wisconsin. Mm-hmm. But you also write a response to artists that aren't really as well known. Mm-hmm. Just, um, Eric Ricca. Mm-hmm. Um, so I wanted to know, what do you look for when choosing an artwork to intern, to dialogue with,

3

with it? It's something that, usually it's that, the artwork, I see it, I like almost immediately become immersed in it. I wanna sit with it for a long time, and when I leave it, it won't let me go. Right. I'm, I keep thinking about it. It keeps coming back, you know? and that I, I keep thinking about it either because I'm just so wowed by it or because there was something intriguing, something mysterious about it that I haven't quite wrapped my brain around yet. So I want to think more about it. and sometimes it's like, I, like you say, it's a wide range of artists and a wide range of media that, that I'm, in conversation with. But one kind of art that I really love is art that's ephemeral. so when you mention Anta, many of her pieces, some of her pieces, well all of them really are, are ephemeral. They will, you know, she's, she's kind of drawing or carving in the sand or the side of a hill, and the rains will eventually wash that away and it will be gone. Or she, you know, puts her own body, like that tree of life Oh yeah. Painting where fantastic. She's covered in mud, up against the tree. And and you know, she'll eventually walk away, wash the mud off and it will just be the tree. So, I also read last night a, a piece inspired by Roy Stab, who's, a Milwaukee ephemeral artist who again works with, the plants from the area where he's building the piece and it's created out of reeds or, or some kind of branches or sticks. And, uh, they're beautiful, like geometric figures are large. You can walk inside of them, but they will, they will disappear. That he doesn't take a showdown. It just dissolves, it just disintegrates. and I think I'm interested in that because I'm just always been really interested in the ephemeral, which to me also relates to transformation and relates to these liminal spaces in between. and, and I've always been drawn to those concepts. Why? I mean, maybe because as Mexican Americans, we sort of exist in a kind of a liminal space, right? And a hybrid space. And I think those spaces are so rich with potential. You know, um, the notion of, I mean, I guess maybe all human beings are, are sort of drawn to transformation, right? That, I mean, people have all different kinds of beliefs about what happens when they die, right? How are their bodies and their spirits, you know, and their souls, whatever one believes transformed. Um, so there's kind of a natural human inclination toward that. But I also think a lot about, uh, the natural world of which we're part and the way in which things within the natural world transform into other things. So I always say to my relatives, my husband, when I die, do not, you dare put me in a box. Do not you, I want a green burial. I don't wanna be in anything more than a shroud and you put me in the ground and I wanna become mushrooms. I wanna become a f whatever it is that feeds plants that then grow, you know? And so I tell'em, you put me in a box, I will come back and haunt you. You know? So,

1

oh yeah. Gosh. I mean, I can agree with you on multiple levels with that sentiment. Don't put me in a box. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm right.

3

Or you think about, you know, one of the poems I've, I've written that has seemed to be for some reason my most popular poem in Boomerang, it's called s Yes. And it refers to, the Monarch Butterfly, you know, and that's the al word for it. and you know, the, of course they go through not only transformation as all butterflies do, but that migration. From those Aries and mi all the way to Canada. And it takes multiple generations to make that journey there and back. And I'm just so drawn to things like that. So I hope that answers No, no,

1

that, that's a beautiful response to my question. And it, it just made me think about how my mom wanted to name me like butterfly, but like we don't really have the indigenous roots to like, she didn't want to like, appropriate anything Uhhuh. And so she called me Za, which apparently also has an etymology towards like, meaning small butterfly. Mm-hmm. And it's so ironic'cause I'm afraid of butterflies. I'm definitely afraid of butterflies. Really ever since I found out that, um, when butterflies, when there's like no nectar, no like natural like food resource for them to kind of, um, to grab onto, in emergencies they can like drink the blood of corpses. Oh, I did not know that. And when I saw it in real life, one time I actually did with Monarchs. It was scary. I, I, and then, uh, I live in Washington state, so, um, in elementary school, they invited us to go to the, this museum in Seattle that had like, um, monarch butterflies in this giant room. I did, I told my parents, um, I'm giving you the permission slip form. Pretend like you did not see it. Aw, I'll put it under the fridge. Mm-hmm. I'm not going to be put in a room filled with butterflies.

3

Oh my goodness. And see, I think it's great that they feed off the corpses.

1

I think that's wonderful. Right. No, I actually, that's really a beautiful image actually, when you think about something,

3

giving life to something else, you know? and that's what I appreciate it, but I can also understand how it would feel very va vampiric. Oh, no. Yeah,

1

yeah. Oh God. But, you know, now, you know, talking about monarch butterflies and the fact that they migrate Yeah. And that they have like this natural response to migration. I also wanna talk about place with you. Mm-hmm. So your poetry's deeply situated in place mm-hmm. Means covering Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Chicago, Illinois, and the Midwest more broadly. Mm-hmm. But also to places outside of the United States, like Chias, Mexico to Korea. Mm-hmm. Which I was shocked by. And, um, how does place enter into your multilingual and astic practice?

3

Boy, that's a question. That's a good question. I'm just, you know, I, I guess. I don't know. My answer's gonna be kind of blah, but I mean, we exist in place. I mean, we exist and, well, I think a lot of it is also maybe being very aware of the places where I am, especially when I'm spending extended periods of time there or I am living there, or even traveling there. I mean, I don't, I like to try to, even when I'm a tourist and I know I'm a tourist and I'm admitting I'm a tourist, I like to try to be less of a tourist. You know what I mean? In the sense of sort of hiding myself, if you will, and really just being part of whatever it is. And so like, not staying in fancy American hotels in Panama. Uh, my husband, my husband's family is from Panama, so we've gone there multiple times. I'm thinking of. When we travel in Panama, you know, we stay at these little, you know, out of the way. Panamanian hotels, we, one time we went to like a resort and he was like, living it. I hate this. You know, so we, you know what I mean? Like, just sort of, you know, and really taking in and appreciating the culture, the people, the rest of the natural world, right? That is there around me. and so absorbing it as much as I can, learning about it before I go there and after, and, you know, you know, taking it in and I guess then that comes out in the poetry, you know? Yes. I've lived in the Midwest all my life and so. and usually on the Great Lakes on Lake Michigan. So you will see Lake Michigan entering. You will see a lot of snow in my poems, you know, forest, a lot of forest imagery. Mm-hmm. Right? Because it's woodlands, it's, and, and so yeah. I think that, in that way it's, it's very important. But Mexico shows up as well, even though I never lived there. My grandparents migrated from Mexico. But you know, I've been many, I've been many times, and I always had their stories, of course as is so common, with immigrants who they went back to visit, but they never moved back. And as is so common, they thought that it stayed. You know, my grandmother would be like, well, she was from Hana and she would thought Hana was forever this tiny little town that looked like it looked when she was 16. My grandma doesn't look, don't tell her that. Right. and so, and you know what my, my, my grandfather came from Maco, which is in the, um, up in the mountains. Mm-hmm. And so it actually had foliage and fauna similar to the Midwest. Oh. He had a, a relative that came before him. It's a long story, but I try to make it short. his, his uncle, his brother Jesus came before him, but went to California and was working as a migrant worker in the fields. And there happened to be this German doctor from Milwaukee who was there doing, at that time, doctors had to do some kind of community service as part of their, I don't know what Right. Service. Yes. And so he was, that doctor was out there tending to the migrant workers when they fell Ill. And this, my great uncle got sick and that doctor helped heal him. Heal him. And the doctor liked him because he thought he was smart. And he said, if you wanna come with me, went back to Milwaukee, I'll make you my apprentice, and I'll see to it that you get an education, not like we think of education Yeah. To the eighth grade, right? Yes. And so Jesus followed him back there and was writing letters to the rest of the family back in Jalisco saying, it's just like home here. There's pine trees. I mean, there wasn't, I mean, waiter here was, but the pine trees and the, this and the, that, it, it was similar. He was telling them. So they all got on a train in the late twenties. Wow. And they were coming to come to Wisconsin. Jesus went back to Mexico. But they came and they missed the stop for Milwaukee. They got by accident. They got off in Detroit and a bunch of them just stayed there. So we have this Rivera part of the family that was, some of them are still in Detroit, some have passed on, and the others got back on the train and headed back from Milwaukee. And that's how we landed there. But you know, I think, you know, when, when poems are set in Mexico, it's coming from my, the stories. My grandfather was a phenomenal storyteller, as was one of my aunties. And I think I get being a writer partly from that. Um, but also, you know, they, and they may play so vivid. Yeah. That then I, I had to travel there. I, I know that's kind of. Not a great answer to it. No, that's that's

1

a fantastic answer. No, it started making me think about like, oh, wow. I didn't realize that I wanted to be a poet, that I wanted to be a storyteller until my parents took me when I was 12 years old to El Uhhuh, which is where my dad grew up. It's a tiny little ranch uhhuh, no streets, no roads. You, they dug a road into the side of this tall, giant hill. There's like caves. My parents would make me drink the water off the stalactite. Wow. There's carpets everywhere. And like, we'd go hiking and we would do all these things and it was like, that's when I became a person, Uhhuh. That's when I became a writer. Mm-hmm. That's when I started telling stories to my family. It was to my family in Mexico. And it's so amazing how, like you're also talking about how like we, we kind of like, you know, as you know, um. People that are like, you know, first, second, third generation establishing, establishing ourself in the United States. We don't really try to reconnect to Mexico Mm. Or to make these places where our family and our ancestors came from. And like I have this big plan. I don't know if my husband will love it, but it's a plan. I want to move to Cuca Mexico and I wanna get certified as a ra. There's this institute called the, and, um, I, I know AERA from Albuquerque, New Mexico. She got certified there. Ah. Um, she actually did like a on me and she put this con over my body and she took me into a toca and it was a, it was an enriching experience. Uhhuh.

3

I bet I stayed in Eva for four months Once. Mm-hmm. It's beautiful, isn't it? Yeah. It's beautiful. Like city of Eternal Spring. Oh yes. Right. With the Flores everywhere and it's so close to Mexico City. Yes. Yeah. oh, something you were saying made me think of something that was really significant to the. But I've lost it. That's what Bean 63 does. If it comes back, I'll tell you. Okay. Oh, fabulous, fabulous.

1

Oh, okay. I'm actually super curious about this next question. Mm-hmm. Wanna ask you. So your work makes me think of writing as a kind of companionship with other art forms. Mm-hmm. And, I want to know, have you ever had an artist respond back to your ATR work?

3

Yeah. Yes, you have. I mean, well, the Blue Street poem, which is one of my favorites that I, I read last night, yes. Uh, is that, you know, I, I had, I was in conversation quite a while with that artist and knew him well and, he, you know, he asked me to write that poem, but not just write a poem, right? Mm-hmm. And he, you know, responded in how happy he was with how the poem, you know, Included so much of the culture of that area and even had him in it, you know, trying to figure out how to paint, you know, that something. and he, he just was really thrilled with it. I remember. I remember his response. So yes, I mean, those that are still a lot. Oh, and Roy stab in Milwaukee. Um, yes. You've heard so much

1

in response.

3

He didn't even know, you know, I was doing this and somehow somebody told him and I was doing a reading and he showed up at it and he was just thrilled. Right. And then he sent the poems that I had written, in conversation with his work to other places. And one of them was put on a wall in, I don't remember exactly where, but it was like somewhere in the far east, with, you know, it was put somewhere among his work, you know, or it was read at, uh, symposium about his work. I think this might have been China. So, yeah, I have had, I have had responses, you know, from the artists. I, I love that when they're, still alive, you know, I mean, of course when they've passed on You know, you don't have that. But I, I like to think that somehow they, no,

Activism and Poetry

1

I love that. I love that sentiment. Another question I wanted to ask you, um, two poems that really stood out to me in your repertoire was the poem Turning, and I think that's in Boomerang Yeah. And Trespassing, which is in Trace due to the fact that they're very implicit about activism.

2

Mm-hmm.

1

And I wanted to know, how does activism play a role in your poetry or just as you know, a person in your personality?

3

Yeah. I mean, I've, I, it was funny because last night at dinner, the group that was there somehow brought up Zodiac signs.

2

Oh yeah. And

3

I said, you know, I'm Libra. And they said, well, do you feel like you fit it? And I said, yes, because Libras the scales, and it's all about justice. You know what I mean? Like my concern for justice is very strong. and my concern for, e equality and giving everyone equal opportunity, um, you know, I don't believe that the 1% should have everything and everybody else should be groveling at their heels. You know what I mean? And, and, you know, my beliefs are very strong there. I, you know, can't, I mean, what kind of world is it to live in otherwise? And so I've always engaged in, activism from, mu tam, like tame, what I consider tame activism. Like, you know, get out the vote, uh, you know, um, texting to get people to vote, souls to the polls, driving people to the polls. Two protests. You know, I've, I haven't done a lot of illegal stuff except in that one poem I'm trespassing Yeah. On the land that they're gonna mine. Right. and yeah, but for the most part, you know, you know, some pretty vivacious protests, uh, that I've been part of, the, those used to work, they don't work anymore because the powers that be just ignore them. So really the only thing they're good for, and I think it's important, they're good for keeping the solidarity of the people who are resisting and keeping our, you know, because you feel like you're banging your head against the wall sometimes. So keeping us, you know, together alive, awake, I'll use that dirty word, woke. and, you know, so yeah. So I, it's always been, that's always been really important to me. And, we'll always be, I'll always get involved in activism and there's nothing, there's. Little did I detest more than like what I call champagne Marxists who talk the talk and write these fancy, you know, scholarly papers on this stuff, but then won't join a union. Yeah. Or won't get out there at all. And it's like, what? You know, I, I just believe that if you believe these things, act on them. Yeah. You know, if you're gonna write about them and make your living off of them, act on them. That doesn't mean that I think everybody needs to be an activist in the same way. Not at all. Because there's multiple way. We need multiple people, you know, doing multiple different things, to make change. And we need to be strategic about it, especially now because the old way is, like I said, don't work. and so, so yes. So sometimes it makes its way into my poetry and that is another way to resist. Now the problem is who reads poetry? Right? Is are the folks whose minds we're trying to change reading poetry? Not a lot of them, but you never know. Sometimes you might go be like, in, in my, my job as poet laureate, I'm in all these little towns, farm towns out in the middle of nowhere. And, you know, people come. Mm-hmm. And, you know, I will read some of those poems. I approach it gently. I don't yell at people, you know? Um, and you know, when you approach humor is a great way to approach it because people, you get people laughing, it can make them think and it can change minds. but so, so yeah, I mean, it, it's one kind of activism and I would, I would be so bold as to say today with all the silencing that's going on and the. Spanning and all of that that's happening simply to write at all. Yeah. As a person of color is an act of resistance, and especially to write about these issues. Oh, yeah. Right. So, Well,

1

and you know, I'm really glad that you brought up your role as Wisconsin State Poet Laureate, because my next question has to do with that. Um, Latinx poets have often redefined Afra in terms of promoting visibility and community, very similar to what you were talking about in activism. And, um, this is making me think about a seminar I attended where we were learning about the ways to do active learning strategies in the classroom. And there's, um, dialogue, debate, discussion, but a new one that they've added is demonstration, which is just attending protests mm-hmm.

2

Of building

1

unity, promoting community, finding people that you can build a coalition with. People that interact with people to talk with people that don't necessarily agree with you, but people that you can like, at least meet on a first base level. Mm-hmm. And so I wanted to know what does all of this mean now for you, especially in your current role as the Wisconsin State Poet Laureate? Like, how do you, how do you see your role specifically within like activism and building community now that you are in such a high position in your state?

3

Well, I mean, you, in that position, you also have to be careful, right. I mean, to a degree. And they, you know, I remember when they first gave me the role, the head of the Laureate commission saying something about. Don't advertise it if you're doing political readings.'cause she saw I was doing some reading that was all politic. The whole thing was, and I say, then you hired the wrong person. Don't hire me to do, I say hire, I mean, I don't get paid. We get, yeah, we get a stipend of$3,000 a year and my whole$3,000 went to building the website for my project. Right. So you don't get paid. But you know, I said, you know that I'm not the poet laureate, I'm not the person to bring into this if, you know, not, you know, I won't be in someone's space. I won't be crude. But, and she backed down, you know, and I went to do a reading for a big, it's the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. So they really love their poet laureate, whoever it is. You know, like that's their, their poet laureate is their ora or their, you know what I mean? And so. Uh, you know, and I read, uh, some of my more political poems and I said, uh, I'm sorry, but I'm not the poet laureate to shut up about this. They all cheered. They cheered. They wanted to see, you know, they wanted somebody to speak out. but I'm, I lost the question now. Oh, how am I, I don't know if I kind of answered it also, I think I answered it a little bit before when I said using humor. Mm-hmm. Approaching it gently, but also being honest mm-hmm. About what it is. Mm-hmm. Right. That, that we're talking about.

1

And I like, I like that you're super authentic. I, the first time I met you at dinner and like, based off of the interview as well, I, I, when I saw your interview, the interview you initially did 10 years ago with La Latinas, I was like, this is such an educated poet. Oh, I am so intimidated to meet this person in real life. And then when I met you, we were so kind, so outgoing. You had all these wonderful stories and like ChemE with you is just feels great. Oh, it's so sweet. So no, like authenticity I think is something that so many people, especially this younger generation, is too scared of doing. Yeah. We're too, they're too scared to be vulnerable. They're too scared to, um. You know, lean into the cringe, so to speak, Uhhuh. That's something I've noticed. And so like, oh yeah, you're reminding me that like, oh, I, I need to just, you know, lean more into my personality a little.

3

Mm-hmm. I think part of that is that everything is so mediated now. It's, this is between, this is always between us, right? This, instrument, this telephone that's become part of our bodies, you know, I think is a problem. And I think that we need a lot more face to face, you know, in this, like, I heard someone call it radical facial, you know? One point. Yeah.

1

Yeah. Oh no. I've been steadily making steps to do that. Get rid of this tablet to get rid of this phone next to me. I've gotten rid of social media. I've only kept WhatsApp to keep, to stay communication with my mother. Mm-hmm. Because she uses WhatsApp a lot.

2

Mm-hmm.

1

And, um, I've noticed that I go to bed early now. Mm-hmm. And I've noticed that I wake up early now I, I rise with the sun.

2

Mm-hmm.

1

And, um, I'm not so bogged down by a lot of the news. Which, you know, sometimes I think it's important to have a little distance from the news mm-hmm. To not be so reactionary to like, what's coming out. Because then we, we start getting all these rumors, we start getting all this misinformation. I think letting it kind of sink into the community and then kind of engaging with the community is the best way to kind of interact with the world, but also to learn more about myself and to not be influenced by others.

3

That's so thoughtful. And

1

even the last step is to get a pink Motorola flip phone.

Woodland Pattern and Poetry Marathon

3

Uhhuh. There you go. There. Go back to the old school. You know, um, going back to your question too about community work mm-hmm. Et cetera. I also have long been involved with an organization called Woodland Pattern in Milwaukee, which is a multi arts organization. That's largest focus is the literary arts and poetry, but they do all the arts and it's very community centric. I mean, this is not an academic institution and you know, I'm on their board of directors now, but I've played all kinds of volunteer roles there and it's so much about reaching out to the broadest, you know, spectrum of humanity and you know, diversity and all different kinds of people bringing all different kinds of poets. You know, we talk diversity in terms of style and aesthetic and all of that, you know, and, and, you know, getting as many people in the doors. And so that's another way in which I feel like I do that. they have this wonderful event annually. It's their big fundraiser that they call the poetry Marathon. And it's two days of all, like morning till night people reading no more than five minutes a piece. But you, the people who are reading are like a marathon runner. So we raise money, like, you know, if you run a marathon for a cause, you ask people to contribute, you know, like put for, you know, in your name you're gonna run 10 miles and they're gonna contribute whatever per mile. It's the same thing. The poets go out themselves and they ra, they get sponsors and then that raises money for this not-for-profit. Right? And, um, it's just a beautiful community event. People come from all over the Midwest and they have it partially online now so that people can tap in from all over the world. Wow. That

1

is amazing.

3

Mm-hmm.

1

Okay, now we're gonna move into the second half of the interview. Okay. We spent a long time on the first half, so I'm sorry, I'm gonna shorten the second half a little bit, but this is my favorite part.

2

We have a talker

1

here. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about your two collections, boomerang and Trace. But before we get into that, I wanted us to kind of break away from the usual structure of theses interviews. And I, I want us to do a little interactive thing. Okay. So I have my fancy dandy Notre Dame Boulder, and inside of it I have a piece of Cardstock paper, eight by 11 inches. That's for you. Thank

3

you.

1

And I have a pack of Crayola. Okay. Great. Color pencils. Thank you. And I have the same for me, and I'm gonna give you this folder so that way you can use it. Oh, thank you. But. I wanted us to do a little creative project together so that way we can learn a little bit more about each other. Okay. I do this a lot with my students and it's really fun. Uh, um, but I want us to, on this sheet of paper, answer the following question.

3

Okay.

1

If we were to map our journey as poets visually, whether as like a mural or a film reel, what would some of the key images be

3

if we were to map our poetry? Say

1

it

3

again.

1

Yeah. If we were to map our journey as a poet visually, what key images would there be? Okay. And so we'll be multitasking. We will be doing that on a page. Okay. While I continue the interview.

3

Oh, wow. wow, wow. Okay.

1

This is something I've seen so many people do and I thought

3

it'd be so fun. And I, as much as I love art, I can't draw my way out of. Anything, which is probably why I appreciate so much what others can do. Yeah, no,

1

me. Same with me. So the first question I wanna ask you while we draw in Boomerang, the title itself suggests both a return and departure

3

Uhhuh. How

1

did that concept shape the structure of this collection

3

in Boomerang? A return and departure. Oh yeah, because I

1

was, I was, I was mesmerized by the, the image or, or the, at least the idea, the motion of flicking your Yes. Having the boomerang come out and then, you know, coming back again and there's like this act of trust, not just between you, but the boomerang itself Yes. Coming back to you.

3

Right. Well, you know exactly what I was thinking. Part of it was, there's some, there are some sassy poems in here as in sassy as in when we were talking about like sociopolitical work, right. And so I was thinking at first of a boomerang as like right back at you. That's probably not a success. That's nice. But I was also thinking about. Moving away right from our home. I don't only mean physically, like not just moving physically from one state to another, but our home base, our people, our fami, our cultura, moving out from that, away from that gathering, all kinds of other things. And then coming back, like there's always that return home. And in the structure of this book, it's the end of the book where there are all of these kind of childhood poems, poems about childhood and about home as a child and about familia. Right? So I, that was partly what I was thinking. Mm-hmm.

2

Mm-hmm.

3

Oh

1

gosh. I love that. No, I, I especially love the, the fact that you pointed out that it was more like a I gotcha. Kind of thing. Yeah. I wasn't seeing that. I was seeing it more as like aesthetic. I was like, wow, is the boomerang gonna come back? Yeah.

3

But it does come back. I mean,

1

yeah. No. And then Boomerang has such intense sound play that one Ra who did the introduction for your collection, he described your verse as sonic calligraphy, which I just thought was like, fantastic. Uh, and it's so noticeable in poems, like sound waves. Yeah. And, um, Uhhuh, like it's, it comes out. And then I was so shocked to find out that I think it was PO sheet music was made for that and performed at Carnegie Hall.

3

Yeah,

1

that's, that was, yeah. That's fantastic. Like, that's a poet's dream.

3

Yeah. That was actually one of the most amazing things that's ever happened to me in terms of my life as a, well, my life period, my life as a poet. But to have this composer get his hands on this poem, God knows how,'cause he was out in California, you know. And then write this choral music and then it, it becomes a score With my words. It becomes published and then Yes, the National Concert Choir performed it at Carnegie Hall along with a bunch of other, it was part of a evening of, actually, you know what the title for the whole Evening of Music was? I Choose Love. That was the title for the whole program that night. And what they had, what it was it was a program of choral music where the music was coming from all different cultures and this piece was part of it. And I'm sitting there in the audience in Carnegie Hall watching, it was a huge choir. I don't remember how many people were in it. Yeah. But like more than 50. And to hear them singing my words to this fantastic music, I mean, I gotta give the composer all the credit, but it was just. I've never experienced anything like that. And you're right, it's a dream come true, and it's partly a dream come true because poetry then is going out beyond just other poets or literary scholars or writers. You know, so often our work is really just being read by each other. And I think like, that's lovely to have these exchanges with each other, but we want, I, I want for everybody, for all our poets and writers, a an audience of readers who just, they don't always have to be writers, right. readers and listeners. Um, because then what do we have, we have a more literate society. and so, you know, I think all the time about these stories about how you can be somewhere in Latin America in the small, dusty town and you'll walk into a cantina and sit down and people will recite you, Pablo Neruda from memory. Here. People don't even know who their poet laureate of the United States is. Yeah. No. You know, so, I mean, yeah. Right.

Trace: Grief, Levity, and Transformation

1

That's, That is, yeah. No, that is, yeah. I, I remember when I told my students I had done the introduction for the, the then US state, United States poet ate out. Yeah. Who's that?

3

She's so fabulous.

1

She is so fabulous. Amazing. Yeah. Moving on. I wanna enter into trace a little bit. Okay. And trace the body and the landscape often reflect and reshape each other, which I thought was fantastic. Thank you. Thank you very. Yeah. I mean, I, I'm a big fan of an, I get those work and I feel like you do a lot of that naturally, whether you're responding to our work or not. And, um, for example, your poem, ghost Species has this sense of the animal dead still walking with us on like this landscape that's kind of been taken over by like a city. Yeah. Yeah. And so do you see the word trace as an encompassing metaphor for migration and displacement? Or is it more as like a, a literal truth about how humans are continuous with their environments? Or rather, and this is like what I'm kind of leaning towards, how the environment's continuous even without us.

3

I think it's all of that. And it was also me thinking about the way in which every being on this planet leaves its trace, right? Every be, every being leaves its trace, every being. Somehow becomes absorbed into the other beings around it and the beans that come after it. Right. I mean, we carry the traces of our parents, our grandparents, our bi, all of that. Right. And, and I, I believe that animals and plants do that too. They, you know, there's been studies that Trees, trees, literally, they, well not literally isn't the right word, but trees talk to each other.

2

Yes.

3

They actually have com systems of communication. Right. So, it's partly that, and then it's also when you think about a lot of the ephemeral art in the book that art is Ana Manta, for example Oh yeah. Is about leaving a trace. Mm-hmm. Right. That she's putting a trace in the land, you know? or if you think, and if you think about migration, it's that as well, that journey. Right. Leaves a trace. Creates a trace. and I feel like, like the book is, my book is not a project book, uh, meaning that it's not, woven together. It's not like, not all the poems are about one subject. And I, I love those books. I appreciate those books where the poet researches, you know, this topic and the whole book is all interwoven so intricately. This is not that. The poems are tied together by kind of larger philosophical comments. Mm-hmm. Or comments, larger philosophical ideas Right. That I was mentioning before. and so I felt like Trace kind of could encumber that this notion of transformation change liminal space. I if that makes sense. Yeah, no, no, that's

1

fantastic. And then. I was also struck by how trace moves switching grief and levity. Oh my. Yeah. As moments of mourning, I mean, as moments of mourning and activism sit alongside sensory beauty. Mm-hmm. And humor and song, for example. And because we come from everything, the collage polling that the band authors, yeah. There's a deep awareness of loss and erasure that's happening there. But there's also this insistence on joy, this insistence on resilience, this insistence on cultural abundance that I, I, it resonated with me deeply. how do you think about that balance when you're writing? do you begin from grief and move toward levity or are they always in conversation from the start?

3

I think they're always in conversation. Mm-hmm. Because I, it's not a linear process. Right. when we experience grief, yes. There are ways in which over time that, the weight of it may be, I dunno if it becomes less heavy or it just shifts, you know, there's this wonderful poem, I'm blanking on the poet's name now. It, it'll come to me. Maybe There's this wonderful poem that the entire poem is about carrying a box and it's a heavy box. And in the poem, the speaker is like moving it around. Imagine walking with this box. And first it's on his hip and then it's on his shoulder, and then he's carrying it in front of him like that. And then he is shifting it over here. And then at the end of the poem he says, and then I learned, you or I, or whatever it is, learn how to carry it, learn how to carry it, something without ever putting it down. And you, when you go back and you look at the title of the poem, it's Michiko Dead. Jack Gilbert is the poet, Michiko was his wife. And when you see Michiko dead, you understand that this box is grief, right. And that it's so heavy, you have to shift it and you, you're never gonna put it down, but you learn how to live with it. but I think there's always a, a back and forth. Right? You, it becomes lighter. Sometimes you can forget, or you can even feel joy in your memories of whatever was lost, right? But then there's always going to be moments where it's all of a sudden gonna feel so heavy again. because, you know, when we lose someone or something, and by that I don't mean physical objects, but you know, something profound. you know, it's with us, our, our whole lives. You know? It's Yeah, I know. It's very poignant. Yeah.

1

Yeah. No, when, when I lost my grandmom, she, you know, she was the only reason I had any ties with connections to Mexico. Now that she's gone, I, I've kind of lost that sense of myself. Mm-hmm.

2

And for me,

1

I, I had to write this poem. And, you know, it was difficult. It's like, I, I want to, you know, respect my grandma and know, and you know, I'm, I'm all this, I'm in the United States. I'm like over 3000, 4,000, 5,000 miles away from her. Yeah. And it's like, I can't even go there and be there for the burial. I'm here. It was my first year in grad school. Yes. My third year now. And so I've had a lot of time to process it, but every time I've, I've tried going onto the page there, there hasn't been any way to write a poem, you know, from either from her perspective or about her. It's like, it's too, it's too direct, too personal. And so I had, I had the, ultimately I was like, I need to get this outta my system. And so I wrote a poem in her voice, and without context, no one would ever know it. But I think, you know, I'm happy with that. I think I'm happy knowing that. Mm-hmm. The voice of this poem, the poet in like the speaker of this poem is my grandma, and she's, saying a prayer to, Levi that's, that sits on the border.

2

Mm-hmm.

1

And, you know, I'm, I'm really proud of that poem and you know, like. I, I do hope one day to go and visit her, her grave. Mm-hmm. And to maybe leave it there.

3

Mm-hmm.

1

Because she gave me so much. She was the reason I'm, I'm even here in grad school.

3

Mm-hmm. I hear you. I hear you. You know, and I, yeah. It takes time with grief. not, I don't only mean to move through it, but to write about things like that. Sometimes they're just too present. And when we try to write about'em, it becomes, too morose or too schmaltzy or whatever. Right. And we need to, we need some time. We need some distance before we can actually put that down on paper.

1

Yeah.

3

Mm-hmm.

1

Wow. And then many of the poems in Boomerang and Trace engage ghosts and deities and ancestral figures. For example, the invocation. And what I wanted to know, what draws you to these mythic and ancestral presences, and do you see them as a form of companionship? Or as a way of making visible what history or dominant culture often erases?

3

Oh, yes. Both of those things. Mm-hmm. Both of those things. what is erased? Also, I love that notion of companionship. and I think they also, again, liminal spaces, right? The between spaces between living here on this planet and, you know, life and death, living on this planet and living in some other realm, right? there's that, it's, again, part of that, it's a moment of transformation. and so I think for all of those reasons yeah, the, those figures, you mentioned, which figures was it again, you had in the question, that you mentioned? Ghosts. Deities. Ghosts. Yeah. Ancestral figures. Yeah. De and yeah, and I think deities and ancestral figures too. That's again, you know, oftentimes that's the, the sort of indigenous part of our culture that is so often erased. You know, it's this irony where, you know, both in the United States and in Latin America where there's this grand celebration of the indigenous, you know, there's these huge museums, and yet at the same time, right, there's this relegating of the indigenous to the poorest parts of the country, right? Um, and they're having to fight and struggle for their water rights. And they're, you know, I mean, this was a distant relative, right? Distant relative. So I'm not trying to claim anything major, but my grandfather said. Until the day he died when he was on his deathbed that we were related to La Cardenas. He was like a second cousin to my grandfather. And, you know, he was the president of Mexico. He was in the 1930s. He was the one who was fighting to give water rights back to the indigenous. and so, and he was like very much, you know, the United States hated him, thought he was a communist because he was like nationalizing Mexico's oil industry and stuff. You know, I'm like so proud that he was my, but he was beloved in Mexico, right. As a president. But, and so I think so often, you know, those mythic figures that you find, you know, are, you know, we can't forget that part of who we are. We don't wanna forget the indigenous and who we don't wanna forget the African and who we are. And there's huge denial in Mexico about the African element and, you know, I mean. Take a trip to Vera Cruz and tell me there's not an African strain, you know, and then say, Africa is everywhere.

1

No, no. So, mm-hmm.

3

Yeah.

1

No, I, I, when I got married to my husband, my husband, you know, he's white. Mm-hmm. He grew up here in the United States. He's, he's related to the Abigail from the Salem Witch trials. Wow. He's, he's related to one of the US presidents. He's related to, um, that lady that butchered her husband. Like, oh, what, what was it? Sally Border? I don't

3

Oh, yeah,

1

I know what you mean. I don't, I know what you, he's related to so many people. Yeah. In United States history, it's insane. And then I, I don't have that, I don't have that connection to history. Like nothing has really been saved or traced in my family, but like. My dad, you know, if he grows his hair out, it's an Afro Uhhuh and it's beautiful Uhhuh. He loves getting dreads, Uhhuh. But I remember when my aita was still alive and he went to go visit her. And, you know, I had encouraged my father to lean in more to like, you know, being who he was and being proud of the way his hair was.'cause he was always bullied about it. Yeah. As little would make fun of you if you looked a little different, they'd call him Chino Uhhuh. And, um, I remember he came back and his dreads were gone. And I was like, wow, what happened? Where are your dreads? And he's like, oh, you know, my mom, she didn't like it.

3

Ah, she didn't like it. Yeah. So now

1

he hasn't really gone back into doing that. But I, I miss when my dad, you know, leaned into his roots a little. Yeah. To like, you know, I, I do have this in me. Right. Yeah. And, you know, I, I know it's there, but it, you know, there's also this sense of like shame and humiliation in the family. Mm-hmm. That doesn't really allow him to kind of have that space.

Personal Reflections and Final Thoughts

3

My, my husband, you know, his family is all from Panama. They. He is very curly hair. Yeah. And when, as long and when we're in Panama, it dreads, it just dreads from the humidity. Oh yeah. There's nothing he can do.

1

Oh, okay. Well we only have about four to five minutes left.

3

You have a lot of questions I didn't know. No, actually,

1

we're actually doing really well on time. Oh good. I just wanna remind you to,

3

yeah. Okay. Okay.

1

But you know, some final questions and thoughts that I kind of wanted to bring up. I mean, if you could offer one piece of advice to a younger poet who feels skeptical of the press as I once did, what would you tell them?

2

What would I tell them?

3

I think it's okay to be, uh, I think it's okay to be skeptical, you know, at first and especially, you know, well, especially if they're not really drawn to visual art. But I would say probably say, give it a chance in the sense of read. Different poets who are doing it read different, you know, poems that are taking different approaches to this form. And so that, and maybe read an article or two that's been written about it or this mode, right, so that you see that it isn't just describing what somebody else already did. If all I did was describe a painting in a poem, I wouldn't write the poem because we might as well just go look at the painting. It's not that, it's not mees, right? it's lending context to this piece. Whether it's the artist's autobiographical context, whether it's cultural context, whether it's historical context, it's lending context. It's looking at it from a one particular perspective or multiple perspectives, and it's interpreting so that somebody can look at that art and read that poem and say, oh, I see why. Poet X interpreted it this way, but I see it differently. If I were to write the poem, I would do this, and you'll see that. You'll see if you have multiple people writing, writing a conversation with the same piece, there'll be very, very different poems, which teaches us something about interpretation. And that can be of literature, of art, of music, of anything, and how we bring who we are and all of our own baggage. And I don't mean that necessarily in a negative way to our viewing or our reading. Right. And there's something to be learned from that. So I would, I would say stay opening enough to at least look a little bit at the possibilities of what this mode can do.

1

Okay. And now I want us to share what we've drawn. I know you still need to work on it, so I wanna share first Stink. And I know the, the prompt I gave, you know, it's such a beautiful prompt. Like if you could draw, like your journey as a poet, like what would be the key moments? Yeah, I'm, I'm a rule breaker. I did not, I did not draw key moments. I drew key people and animals. Oh, cool. So I drew my dad. Oh, you can draw. So, oh, you think better than me. I have stick figures. I drew my dad, Juan Carlos. I drew my mom, Leticia, and I drew my two cats. Because I always have these people as characters in my poetry, no matter how much I try not to, I can't, I can't go away from like my father and some of you know, the good moments and the bad moments I've had with him. Mm-hmm.'cause like we see eye to eye sometimes, but we also fight. Yeah, of course. Really well. Mm-hmm. So I have him in red squiggles and then my mom, she's in like an orange ray.'cause my mother has always been very spiritual and has always been there in terms of like my health and in my education. She's always been super supportive. And then, um, this is my cat. Aw, bratwurst. That's her full

3

bratwurst bratwurst. Oh my God. You're talking my language, Scott.

1

Yeah. No, I, I as a Mexican family, we wanted try Bratwurst out and she came and she stole one of those sausages, and I was like, that's how she entered the family. She was a thief. Yeah. No, and I'm a big Elvis fan, so I named her after Elvis' wife Priscilla, and because she's never gonna die. And then she had a daughter, Uhhuh, and she is actually the love of my life. She is the grumpiest kitty in the world. She will not love you. She's actually really creepy. If I sleep, my sister would come in and check on me because it was my sister's job to make sure I could breathe at night, because Lola would sit on my chest and she would just stare at me and she would be like, She would be breathing real hard, just watching me. Yeah. But her full name is Dolores Ofelia Uhhuh. She's always sad. It seems like she's always in pain. Yeah, no, I, I, I write about my cats, I write about my parents and I, I use them as ways of kind of finding a new voice within the poem, but also kind of navigating my own voice.

3

That's beautiful. That's beautiful. Like, I didn't think that deeply about this. This is terrible because it's here. I am the lover of art and I have stick fingers. I couldn't even really draw them like sitting down or anything, but this is me and my auntie, my t heart of my heart, second mother to me. My mother is a lovely human being and I love her too, but I had two moms. I grew up with two moms. My auntie couldn't have children of her own, and she took to me like, you know, uh, we lived in, they, it was a two flat. They lived down. We lived up. And when my parents finally bought their own house and we moved away, we were moving only, we were only moving five minutes away. But I didn't know that as a child and I was just beside myself that we were moving away and my aunt and uncle actually asked my mom and dad if they could have me. My mom said, we can't give you our child, but I'll bring her over all the time. So, but anyway, my auntie, you know, she has a book here because she would make me these blank books. Mm-hmm. So she would take paper, it was always recycled from something and she would, you know, put it. You know, punch holes and put it together, bind it with yarn, or bind it with something. And she would gimme these blank books and she would say, here, you write your stories in here. You draw in here. And she, she actually taught me how to draw like shoulders. I could've done this better. Right. How to, and, and she would have me write my little stories and do my little stuff in there. And then what's

1

in, what's that in the middle?

3

That's supposed to be the, the high school newspaper where I had my first poem published.

2

That's fantastic.

3

The Bayview Compass. I went to Bayview High School and that's my first poem was published in the school, newspaper. And, at the editor, I didn't know her well then,'cause we ran in different crowds, but she is now my best friend. She's been my best friend for 45 years, 40 years, something like that. Right. So, that's that. This is now, this is now, co high school college learning. Oh, this is supposed to be. Writing and learning. Reading. Oh, reading fantastic. Reading is a big part of writing. Yeah. You know, so reading and also like learning to write. And this is supposed to be like a forest because I, I love walking in the, in a forest or in the woods. I love taking in the flora, the fauna, the air, everything around me. And I often, get ideas for poems when I'm doing that, you know, and they start gestating in my head. and so, it, that's a part of my creative process, you know? Um, but. Anyway,

1

so we're about time. Okay. But I actually wanted you to do something for me.

2

Okay.

1

I am in the middle of my exams and I, when I read the stanza, it was just the stanza and the opening of your poem, shipping and receiving uhhuh. I felt liberated. And I was wondering if you could just read that stanza for me. You bet. Right here, just the first stanza.

3

Yeah. That poem is fun. Okay. sick of Fumbling with lunch sack purse, umbrella mask keys, and the two tongue backpack overflowing with unread essays, laptop discussion posts, poems caught in the jammed zipper. I slam it all down on the kitchen table and declare to the dog that I quit. I will never again work anywhere that sends me home to work even harder, all weekend long. End of story, period. Puno Ya. I decide to shift.

2

Thank you. Welcome. I when, when I read that You're welcome. I was like, ugh.

3

I wish. Yeah. I mean that was just, this is one of those poems about after having taught for so long, just be like, oh, can I grade another paper for the life of me?

1

Well, that's the end of this interview. Thank you so much for coming and for participating, and thank you to all those that are watching.

3

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's just so, so lovely and so smart. I really appreciate having this conversation with you. Me too.