Author Spotlight: Osmani R. Ochoa

Buy: How To Survive An Asthma Attack in a Climate Apocalypse | Abode Press | $12 | 07/31/26

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Can you describe the environment(s) where you wrote your book? This could be the room, the desk, the city, an MFA program, a fellowship, or any other environmental factor (you only wrote when it rained, you always wrote with fresh flowers in the room, etc.). 

Most of this book was written about a year or two into COVID-19. I had my Adele moment after a breakup, lol. The poet in me got resurrected after being dormant for almost nine years! During that time, I was so immersed in community organizing and anti-deportation campaigns that I felt emotionally drained. I felt like I didn't have any space left to write.

Then the breakup happened. It hit me hard, so I started journaling just to process everything. At some point I remember thinking, "Dude... you used to be a poet." So I started remixing those journal entries into poems. One of them became "Asthma (it gets harder to breathe)", which is in the collection, and that poem really kickstarted what later became a central theme of the book.

The full cohesion didn't click until later. I was taking a walk along the River Walk trail on San Antonio's south side with my friend and poet extraordinaire, Saúl Hernández, and he was talking about the importance of a throughline in a poetry collection. That conversation stayed with me. Later on, I went back to my poems and suddenly realized, "Oh my god... I already have one." It had been there all along. The throughline was my lungs.

How did your relationship with your family influence your writing?

My family shaped this book in really profound ways. I interviewed my mom for some of the poems, translated all of the self-portrait poems to read to her and she gave me feedback, and both she and one of my sisters are quoted and referenced in the collection, since they sparked metaphor in ways I hadn't expected. One of the saddest poems in the book is in Spanish. It's a letter to my mom that I've never shared with her, so I'm honestly a little nervous for her to read it because she has no idea I felt that way in a moment she has no clue about. Also, the book is dedicated, in large part, to my parents. They were my caretakers. The writing process made me realize how much we all still carry from that time period. I mean, my mom's caretaking has been the ultimate show of love and sacrifice—her body still lives with the residue, las secuelas, in the form of body cramps and insomnia, which I refer to her in one of the poems as “a moon of / /Disˈmembərd/ memory / Body tattoos” and through the self-portrait poems, I was finally able to thank my mom for all she did for my sisters and I.

How did writing this book transform you?

I took the self-portrait poems to my former therapist actually, and after reading them to him, he told me he believes I have complex PTSD, which I didn't expect, lol. He said that chronic illness, especially growing up with asthma, has shaped me in more ways than I have realized. Living with the repeated experience of not being able to breathe, of existing in a body that just gasped and wheezed throughout so much of my childhood, doesn't just create isolated memories... it trained my nervous system to anticipate danger even when none is there. Looking back, I can see how that has influenced so much of who I am or became at one point: my all-or-nothing thinking, my perfectionism, my need to prepare for the worst possible outcome, my previous tendency to cling tightly and too fast to people and good moments, and my fear that anything beautiful could end, just like that. I could keep going on, but I'll spare you, lol.

You can often tell a lot about a book by how it begins and how it ends. What is the first line and last line of your book?

Interesting! That's so true. I hadn't thought about it that way. The very first line of the book is, "Breathe in:" and the very last line is "[exhale]." So you can clearly see what the book's priorities are. It all tracks. The collection literally begins by asking you to breathe and ends by inviting you to exhale. You can't get more essential than that. At its core, that's what the book keeps returning to: survival, breath, and what it means to keep going, one inhale and one exhale at a time.

Community and friendship are sustaining factors for many writers. Give a shoutout to some of the folks who have held and supported you in your writing life. 

A huge shoutout to Sara Daniele Rivera, Nadia Choudhury, Violeta Graza, and Saúl Hernández. This collection would not be what it is without them. Sara and Nadia challenged me with their incredibly astute attention to detail, always asking what was truly serving the poem (and the collection) and what wasn't. 

Watching Violeta perform at San Antonio open mics reminded me that poetry can be dynamic, playful, and alive on the stage and on the page. 

And Saúl's deep commitment to craft, form, and their writing practice had a big impact on me. He takes every poem seriously, and that dedication has stayed with me, especially because I was still relatively new to the technique and theory of poetry writing.

More broadly, I'm grateful for every workshop, open mic, residency, and late-night conversation that reminded me writing doesn't happen in isolation. This book was definitely shaped by my community of friends and family, whether they realize it or not.

If you could organize a reading with any writers living or dead, who would be in the lineup? Where would you host the event?

Okay, I could go so many directions with this one. But I’ll say this randomly with no explanation:

Homer, Gloria Anzaldúa, Juan Gabriel, Douglas Kearney, and Anthony Cody.

What are you currently reading? 

Right now I'm reading “Leaked Footages” by Abu Bakr Sadiq, which blends memory, migration, and displacement through really amazing cinematic, speculative, dystopian imagery. My friend Kerrie Joy recommended that one. I'm also reading “Missed Aches” by Jennifer Tamayo, a deeply intimate collection that explores grief, family, and language—the word play in that collection is wildly clever! And I’m also reading “The Black Orb” by Ewhan Kim, a Korean surreal sci-fi novel that follows a mysterious black sphere as it transforms society and raises big questions about humanity. Let me just add that my short attention span can rarely finish a novel, but this is one… I am so close to actually finishing! So, so good.

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Osmani R. Ochoa is a queer Mexican-Xicano poet and longtime local and national organizer for immigrant and worker rights. Their migrant futurist writing addresses themes of immigration, queerness, and borders and appears in 'Not Your Papi's Utopia: Latinx Visions of Radical Hope' (Mouthfeel Press) and 'Xicanxfuturism: Gritos for Tomorrow' (Riot of Roses Publishing).