Looking Back at 20 Years of Letras Latinas: Sheila Maldonado
- letraslatinasblog2
- Jun 8
- 2 min read
Top left: Edgar Garcia, Sheila Maldonado, and Gina Franco posed together outside of the Poetry Center. Top Middle: Edgar, Sheila, and Gina signing their books inside the Poetry Center. Top Left: Gina reading. Bottom Left: Edgar reading. Bottom Middle: Sheila Maldonado, Edgar Garica, and Gina Franco posed after the reading together. Bottom right: Gina reading.
Tucson was truly special. I’m writing this almost a year to the day since that dream reading. Edgar and Gina and I fit so well, Edgar's lyrical concern with indigenous themes, Gina's intimate, heartbreaking lines, I felt in conversation with them and had just met them. University of Arizona Poetry Center was such a welcoming space as well, giant windows on a plaza, chairs half out in the open air, a beautiful night, just a bit cool, a warm crowd, old friends, kind hosts, poets I had never met. It was an immense honor to celebrate Letras Latinas 20th anniversary reading there as I celebrated a milestone birthday myself, truly serendipitous. It was also the birthday of the director of the center. There was cuspy Pisces poetry magic happening, it was quite real. I felt in the right place at the right time.
Letras Latinas began as I was wrapping up grad school in creative writing over 20 years ago. I am so grateful to have been in this poetry world with it. I’ve read for it in NY and DC. I’ve been interviewed by its blog and judged manuscripts for the Andres Montoya Prize. Its initiatives led my poems to be published in Best American Poetry’s blog and in Poetry Magazine. I saw it and it saw me. I am from this peripheral group among peripheral groups and Francisco understands that. We are both Central American and I believe that means we know what it is to be outside of worlds and go unseen, it means to observe and be aware of everyone. I am glad to be imagined among all the poets Letras Latinas has touched.
— Sheila Maldonado
