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Brava by Violeta Garza | $15 | First Matter Press | 53 pages | 2025 | ISBN-13: 978-1-958600-11-5 (paperback) I had the pleasure of chatting with Violeta Garza on December 8th, 2025, to talk about her debut poetry chapbook, Brava . The following is a transcription of our conversation. Cloud Cardona (CC):  I’d like to start with the journey to Brava . What was your journey-making process? How did you know this was going to be a collection? What called you into writing Brava  at this particular moment? Violeta Garza (VG):  I wanted poems I could age into. I wanted poetry that could stimulate my throat chakra, which is something that I struggle with sometimes. You know, I was rewarded for not speaking up when I was growing up. So,I wanted something that felt very truthful, something of the ages, of the ancestors, lineage of who has come before and who is here now and who is going to come in the future. When I think of what Brava became—not that I set out to do this, but after the fact when I saw what she became—I realized that I never grew up. It’s funny that I’m telling you this because you have your poem “Tía-Shaped,” but I never really had the tía that would take me in and take care of me in that way. I know that some people talk about their books being their children, but for me,  Brava  is my tía. La tía Brava . She likes to take her clothes off, and she’s the one who is healing those generational patterns by speaking her truth. There are times that I want to be more Brava  than I really am. She’s become the role model for what I can’t say out loud, but she says it for me. I feel her taking me by the hand and saying,  c’mon, get out of your shell . I am just really grateful for her showing me the way. CC:   Brava  is your tía! I love that. I wanted to ask you about your public readings. We first met at a reading for Voices de la Luna . You were coming into the poetry scene here in San Antonio and doing a lot of readings. I feel like very quickly, even maybe the first time I saw you read, you already had a stage presence. Could you talk about your performance style, what helped you along the way, and any tips for people looking to break through on stage? VG:  Yes! There were three things that got me here—one, I got to teach English to high school students in Japan who didn’t speak English, so I learned to use my voice and body in a way that was more, maybe, dramatic, operatic, almost, to get my point across. Two, I did story time for toddlers for ten years, so even though they spoke English, they didn’t have an attention span. So again, it made me realize that instead of having people sit through a bland reading, making it come alive was a gift for them. For toddlers and adults, I mean, our attention spans are not something to be proud of these days [laughs]. Three, I went through these brain injuries that recalibrated my entire life, and it felt like divine interference to bring me into this world. I thought to myself, these ancestors and guides did not go through all that trouble to get me here just to sit there and not own my power and my presence, like I am supposed to be up there. I think a lot of people are nervous, and I understand. I get nervous too. But if nervousness leads to I don’t belong on this stage , the audience will know it immediately. So when I am up there, I know I am supposed to be up there. Even if it’s only for five minutes, that stage is mine, and nobody else’s. As an introvert, it is the only time I don’t have to interrupt anybody, I don’t have to time my response, I don’t have to wait for the right moment to jump in and say, Here’s what I think … No! I get to set the pace. So I lean into that.  I think most people want to see you succeed because they want to succeed. So if you’re bombing, they feel like they’re bombing. But if you’re killing it up there, there’s killing it up there too. It is almost like the audience wants to be up there with you and wants to root for you. On a more technical level, what I would do is plan the very first word you’re going to say when you’re up there, whether it’s “Hello!” or “Welcome!” or “What’s Up!” because once that happens and the audience responses to you, then the rest comes naturally. Another tip: if at all possible, memorize at least one of your lines from your poems, so you can look up and make a connection. The printed poem is the rough draft to the performance, if that makes sense. And what I’ve seen, that I would have never imagined, is these middle-aged cis men who are really connecting with my poems because it takes them to this time of childhood with their grandmothers or with someone that they’ve lost. So I learn more the more I perform, based on audience feedback. So I hope it’s not something people are scared of, but something they embrace. CC:  I love that. Is there a particular poem that you love to perform? VG:  Oh yeah! These days, it’s the “Comadre” poem; it’s a prayer of finding your bestie. When I wrote that poem, I was lonely as heck, but that poem got me my comadre because I was vulnerable and specific and insistent that I wanted a bestie, dammit [laughs].  CC:  I love it. It’s almost like a spell. I like to see poems that, sometimes subconsciously, are these prayers and manifestations that we don’t even know we’re writing. It’s like an incantation, you know? It obviously worked for you; you have several now.  VG: It did. I am so lucky. I had to voice it. Again, throat chakra stuff.  CC:  Speaking specifically to Brava , it has a lot to do with the body. Both its struggles and its celebrations of the body, the sensuality, and the pain it brings, and how it fails us. Could you talk about how you approach writing into the body, into the senses? VG: I have been a very cerebral person for most of my life and have been rewarded for getting good grades in school and making the family look good. So for a long time, I put my body last because I felt like it was shameful. In many cultures, but especially in traditional Mexican households, girls are taught shame as a way of controlling their sensuality and autonomy. I bought into that for a very, very long time. About a decade ago, I was at a poetry festival in New York City, and I forgot who was speaking, but someone from the audience shared, “Our bodies are the longest and most intimate relationship that we’ll ever have in our lifetimes,” and this triggered the crap out of me at the time cause I thought Ugh! [laughs], I don’t like that, that makes me uncomfortable . It took me a very long time to realize that I was being very unkind to my body because it didn’t look the way I wanted it to look. There are different ages where I’ve wanted different things. There was a season I wanted bigger calves because I wanted fuller legs, and I think that a lot of us have those hang-ups. But then, when I experienced my brain injuries, my body rebelled and said, okay we’re just going to do the bare minimum now . And it didn’t matter what my calves looked like, what mattered was that my legs were able to take me to the restroom, shower, and all of things. It started being less about what I wanted my body to be, and more about the things that my body did for me all the time without me even giving a thanks. Once I started demilitarizing myself in that structure where intelligence was my entire sense of worth for a very long time, the brain injuries made me a C+ adult, where I was an A+ adult for so much of life. But C+ is alright, my body does what it does. I am grateful to her for having more way more wisdom than my brain has. My body remembers. My body honors. My sacredness, my existence, you know, I carry the blood of my ancestors and of my family. In the long term, do I want to look hot or have peace? And it took me a long time to realize that, to do what I need to do in this lifetime, I needed to stop the war with myself. And that’s what “Bless My Inconvenient Body” is about. We don’t have to be enemies. We can actually be besties. And she’s one of my homes, this body of mine is one of my homes. And I best respect her, cause she has a lot of power. CC: Yes. That’s so well put. I relate to that struggle. I’d love to dive into one of your poems. Could you read “A Veces Me Pongo Brava” for us? VG:   Reads “A Veces Me Pongo Brava”. Click here to hear her poem. CC: Thank you. I love this poem. There’s so much strength. It reminded me of Sandra Cisneros’ poetry in Loose Women , with its punctuation. There’s a strength even in the uncertainty, and the quieter moments of the ending, too. I specifically wanted to talk about the moment about Flaco Jimenez. You address the audience with the line, “There I go with the lies again, I don’t drink tequila, and I barely listen to Flaco, just hoped I’d win points with my people.” When I heard this poem for the first time, that stanza was stuck in my head because I had never heard a poet, specifically a Mexican-American poet in San Antonio, reference this desire to connect, even if it means embellishing. And I love that. That’s so real, that desire to connect with our culture and people, even if it doesn’t speak true to our own experiences. Could you talk about this moment? What inspired you to write that line? That stanza? VG:  Yeah, so I’m from San Antonio. I grew up in Mexico, and I speak Spanish. My family barely spoke any English; I mean my parents did not speak English conversationally or for fun. So I am very Mexicana, but in some ways, because of my skin color and colorism, again, I was rewarded growing up for acting more white than Mexican. Which, at the time, felt like a success story. I felt this responsibility to elevate my family out of poverty, and to do that, I felt I had to be a professional. And to do that, I was taught to get along with dominant culture people, and again, it felt like a success story until I thought, oh wait, my own people don’t know who I am  or don’t know that I’m Mexicana like them. Growing up, for a long time, I thought it was important to be monetarily successful, but I realized no one was claiming me. My culture wasn’t claiming me. It wasn’t like, she is not one of ours; she’s one of theirs. Especially living in Portland for a very long time, I felt like my own culture was slipping away from me. And there are times when the more performative, flashy elements of our culture are celebrated, so you go oh yeah, I drink tequila, I listen to Flaco, don’t ask me for one of his song titles, I don’t know him, but I am going to be like yeah!  in moments of desperation. I have always felt like I could belong anywhere, but I didn’t actually belong anywhere. There were times when I was just desperate to be one of my own people. So I did feel like it was vulnerable to call myself a liar because I didn’t want people to think I lie about everything cause I don’t, but I felt like it was important to own up to, sometimes, in order to fit in, we peer pressure ourselves into being one of the crowd when in fact, there are so many different types of Mexicans and I just happen to be one of them. So in moments of strength, I remember that, but sometimes it isn’t always easy. CC:  That’s so real, though, and so human in a way that a lot of us don’t talk about in fear of the shame, the vulnerability, which is why I love this moment in the poem. I think there are certain trigger words at a poetry reading in San Antonio, and you get the audience reaction. It’s the conchas. VG: YES! YES! CC: You could do a whole concha anthology. It’s a whole subgenre of Chicano poetry. We just don’t talk about it, or maybe there are academic essays talking about it, but it’s not a conversation I’ve seen. So I love that you brought that into Brava . VG:  And I wrote this poem before Flaco Jimenez died, so now when I perform, I say, “que en paz descanse,” which is not in the book.  CC:  I love that addition. You referenced the “Comadre” poem earlier. Could you read that for us and then talk about it a little bit? VG:   Reads "Comadre ". Click here to read her poem. CC:  I love hearing that one, it’s so joyous and so vulnerable and has that element of humor that so many of your poems hold, while simultaneously holding the harder things, the vulnerability, the loneliness. I’d like to hear you talk about this balance, how you bring humor into your poetry. What draws you to placing humor in these poems of yours? VG:  I think humor is something that helps us get through the really difficult times. To me, laughter and grief are part of the same coin. My best friend who I dedicate this book, told me once, “I can’t tell if you’re crying or laughing, they sound the same,” when we’d be on the phone, and it was the truth. I laugh and cry in the same way. Like many of us, life is very painful at times, and the only way to get through it sometimes, even if it’s just me making myself laugh, I’m not saying I’m trying to make everybody laugh, humor is so subjective, but for me, if I am having a good time with my poem, then I find other people tend to come along. In part because I am such a drama queen, that even when I suffer, I make myself laugh from the sheer drama. I’m grateful that people call this a humorous book, because it did make me laugh, and I hope it does the same for others, but I would never say that I set out to write a funny book of poetry, because then people are going to look at it and be like, that’s not funny. But to me, the more I read it, the more it makes me laugh at times when I thought it would be the opposite, that I would be hardened to the humor, but no, it is the laughter that keeps on giving to me.  CC:  You know, I feel like that is very in the Chicanx tradition of poetry, too, that I’ve seen a lot in San Antonio. Bringing in that humor feels rare sometimes in the poetry space; there are so many spaces that are very serious and silent, which at certain moments is appropriate, but I think there’s always more room for humor, especially in poetry. There’s nothing better than making people laugh at a poetry reading, I feel. I’m sure you feel the same way. VG:  Oh yeah, it’s the best. It’s the best [laughs]. CC:  I’d like to talk about your artistic inspirations for Brava . What poets and poems were you in conversation with or inspired by while writing these poems that ended up in Brava ? VG:  You know, I think I’m constantly inspired by, especially here in the San Antonio community.. I’ve been drawn to your work, and to the work of Yesika Salgado in L.A., and, of course, to the work of Sandra Cisneros. There’s also Analicia Sotelo from Houston, who’s amazing. Saúl Hernández, too, what a badass. I also take a lot of inspiration from musical stars like Juan Gabriel, Tori Amos, to some extent, Fiona Apple, a lot of those songstresses. Even Kate Bush, The Beatles. In fact, in a way, “A Veces Me Pongo Brava” was inspired by the work of the later Beatles; it feels like two different songs in one, so I have two different poems in one. It could have been two different poems, but it was the cosmic coin, you know, two different signs, so I find that I’m inspired by artists in general. Oh, also the cartoonists, Lynda Berry, Malaka Gharib and Nicole Georges. CC:  I love the range, and I love what you said about the eight-minute-long Beatles song with a secret song at the end, when you think the album is over. On that note of inspiration and process, I noticed a lot of these shorter lines and sometimes words broken up across multiple lines, specifically in “La Tiendita” and “Inheritance.” Could you talk about this stylistic choice? What inspired your line breaks and enjambment?  VG:  I love working with white space on the page. Even in my weaving, I wove this whole piece [points to piece she made], and you’ll notice some white almost as if they’re line breaks themselves. So for me, I need to breathe when I’m reading a poem. You know, I’m an earth sign that’s sustained a constellation of concussions, so slow burn is my jam and always has been. I take my time on the page. And part of that is because I want to make sure that some of these lines really shine and don’t get buried in with all the text. I think more claustrophobic forms are effective, but I find that I have a hard time understanding all of that, and part of that is because of my TBI-imposed ADHD. I find that when I do use those line breaks, I really slow down the reader, and it’s up to them on how they want to read it and how they want to receive it. But for me, I need to be able to feel like I’m stepping on the ground, slowly almost like Thich Nhat Hahn, really savoring the meaning and moment. And that’s meaningful to me, which is why the cover also has so much white space as well, because originally, she was this creature engulfed by everything else, but by widening out her hips and giving her some bluebonnets and picking flowers, she’s resting into the moment and being in the moment. CC:  That makes sense that it does create a mindfulness, a slowing down, a lengthening the poem, staying in that moment, and you know something else I noticed in Brava, the range of topics that you approach is varied, like we have comadres, we have the body, we have home, we have loss, we have Ulvalde, we have a personal poem about a friend of yours that was killed by a drunk driver. We have these intense moments alongside the aforementioned humor and lighter moments, but I’d like to know the process for determining what you were going to include in this collection. And how did you approach your process of including certain poems in Brava ? VG:  Yeah, when I first started writing poetry, I was going through a very traumatizing breakup, and really exploring poetry was a healing modality. As an ugh, like let me excrete this from my skin, from my pores, and that was a wonderful practice. I thought, “I really want to publish this grief collection.” But I found that while those poems were good and my editor at the time said, yeah these are great, I didn’t want to revisit so much of that pain, like I’ve already gotten past it, and books take a long time to get published, and like, some of these poems in Brava that just came out were written two years ago. But I wanted to enjoy this collection. I wanted it to be deep, I wanted it to be medicine, but I didn’t want it to feel like I was cringing at the thought of this book. Some of that I learned from Rioberto Gonzalez at the Macondo Writing Workshop: you don’t want to keep retriggering yourself. You want to be able to enjoy, and I’ve seen some writers when their books come out, they’ve had enough of the book and they don’t want to revisit it again, but for me, I wanted it to feel honest, truthful, you know difficult at times, but feel like even though I could go into those depths, I could come out easily. So even though there’s only sixteen poems, when I go to readings, I have my pick of do I want to do a sensual poem: do I want to do a funny poem? A sad poem? I like the fact that I am a bit of a wild card when it comes to poetry; there’s so much for me to choose from. I like having that range because, depending on what’s going on in the world, I might choose a specific poem. Right after the Texas floods in July, I had a reading, and I was able to do the Uvalde poem and tie it to that current event. So I feel like she’s just a rich field of wildflowers, and I can pick whatever I want for any given moment. And I want to thank my editor, John Espinoza, for helping me winnow down the collection. I gave him about 36 poems and he cut it to about half that had a narrative, so I am grateful that someone told me to make sure to get an editor because it really helped me feel like I could step outside of myself and get that help so that it would make sense to others. CC:  That’s such a good point about having variety, like having any given situation you’re in, you have different poems that speak to what the audience's needs are in the moment or what the event calls for. I think that’s brilliant to have that in a chapbook. There’s only so much you can do in 30-40 pages, but Brava  proves that you can have so much variety in one collection. This brings me to my next question, if there any projects or anything on the horizon that you’re working on currently? VG:  There are a few things that I’m proud of. I’ve composed an instrumental classical music album, which will be released in 2026. I’ve collaborated with the University of Incarnate Word and their music therapy department to make it work, and it’s been exciting. We finished recording it, and mixing is next. And I’m also working on a fully Spanish-language collection of essays about leaving Mexico as a child, coming back as an adult, and feeling all these hollows in my body from being torn away from that first homeland. I mean, technically, I was born in the States, but I moved there when I was four, so that felt like my homeland for a very long time. And I’m working on a hybrid poetry graphic memoir about brain injuries. So, it is a full load over here, but I am mentioning it because I’m manifesting support for all of these projects because they’re all very different and in some ways, I’m taking on more than I can chew, but that’s on purpose because the help will come. I am especially looking for help with learning how to draw better. CC:  You’re doing so much in different genres, like you have music, you have essays, you have a hybrid memoir, that’s awesome. VG:  Yeah, I can’t seem to stay in one lane [laughs]. CC: Yeah, do it all! VG:  Yeah, do it all! With the time that we have. CC:  Lastly, I wanted to ask if there were any musicians, artists, poets, or anything that you want to shout out or have people put on their radar. Whether it’s forthcoming or it’s been out for 50 years. VG:  In terms of collections of poetry that are coming out from local San Antonio poets, I’m really excited about Osmani Ochoa’s chapbook, Once We Were Rebels,  from Maíz Poppin Press and also Alejandra “La Mera Mera” Sanchez-Alaniz is coming out with Lip Liturgy from Mouthfeel Press in January of 2027 I believe. I am also excited for the anonymous fuzzball graphic novel by Nicole Georges. And I was going to say the new Chet Baker album. No one ever told me about Chet Baker when I was growing up, and I discovered him a couple years ago and thought, how come nobody told me? I especially adore early Chet Baker. Like just cause I’m Mexican, no one told me about this! [laughs]. But I live.  CC:  It is messed up, it’s the assumption that we wouldn’t be into it! But I’m glad you discovered it now. CC: Thank you so much for talking about Brava , poetry, inspiration, and everything. I greatly appreciate it. If people want to purchase Brava  or follow you, where should they head? VG:  Yes, so if you want to go to my website at violetagarza.com , I am also a performance doula, so I help with performing in front of audiences. We work together to get to the root of what makes you nervous, but also why you keep coming back to it. On Instagram, I am at @violeta.poeta. Thank you so much for this opportunity, it’s been so lovely. I also want to give a shout out to my press, First Matter Press, which has been so kind to me, and I’ve learned a lot about this process from them. Cloud Delfina Cardona is an artist, writer, and book cover designer from San Antonio, Texas. She is the author of What Remains , winner of the 2020 Host Publications Chapbook Prize, and the past is a jean jacket , winner of the Hub City Press BIPOC Poetry Series. Cardona is the cofounder of Infrarrealista Review, a nonprofit that publishes Texan writers. She is an associate at Letras Latinas.

The Rendering by Anthony Cody | June 2023 | Omnidawn | ISBN: 9781632431141 In an interview with The Guardian

I used to run a series of interviews called Writers Talking About Anything but Writing, because I love The third thing I’ll say is that as a Taurus (yes I will be mentioning astrology in this interview more If for the sake of those reading this interview, I had to reduce it down to its core then perhaps I’d

Thanks so much for taking time to read my work and complete this interview. I had the incredible pleasure of interviewing Myriam Gurba recently for my school and a student asked

For our next 20th Anniversary event , Letras Latinas is headed to San Antonio, Texas. Letras Latinas collaborated with the legendary Macondo Writers Workshop to bring Michelle Otero for a public reading as part of the Guest Faculty writers at Trinity University in the Ruth Taylor Recital Hall on July 27, 2024 at 7:00- 8:15 pm. Otero is also providing a free community workshop called How to eat a Memory at Gemini Ink on July 25, 2024 at 10 am-12 pm. See Macondo's website for more details. For many years, the Macondo Writers Workshop has a haven for writers. On Macondo's website, writers Pat Alderete, Sandra Cisneros, Leslie Larson, Olivia Mena, Amelia ML Montes, and Carla Trujillo describe Macondo as a place named "after the mythical village in Gabriel García Márquez’s novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude . During the week, the participants would leave the time and place of their ordinary lives. Macondo was and has always been a soul family. Writers from across the country felt at home in the sweltering heat of South Texas. During the day they would hone their craft and their stories in the Macondo Writers Workshop, 'to inspire and challenge one another in order to incite change in our respective communities' through each other’s writing." We spoke to Macondista, Michelle Otero, about her recent book Vessels: A Memoir of Borders (FlowerSong Press), her previous chapbook Malinche's Daughter (Momotombo Press), and what she's looking forward to this summer at Macondo Writers Workshop. Brent Ameneyro (BA): A story being told out of chronological order can strengthen the arrival of certain moments of tension. It is also a way to mirror the way memory often works: fragmented, a little chaotic. In addition to writing Vessels  in this way, you also chose to jump back in time to before you were born, to your ancestors’ stories. Time becomes fluid as the reader bounces around in what feels like an eternal story, one that started long ago and is still being written off the page. Can you speak on the impetus behind the way you approached time and storytelling? Michelle Otero (MO): Trauma has a way of compressing time, of making certain events feel present, even if they happened years or decades or centuries ago. This was certainly true for my grandfather. After decades of relative good health, my grandma’s illness and death triggered his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and reminded all of us, in the words of his psychiatrist, that “every day is an anniversary for Mr. Moran.”  I also wanted to convey the sense of history walking in circles, patterns repeating themselves, inheritance, how each generation does some of the work the previous generations did not complete, how we keep revisiting old wounds until we make a conscious effort to heal them.  Writing this book is one of the ways I hoped to lighten the load for future generations.  Laura Villareal (LV): Vessels: A Memoir of Borders  includes essays from your chapbook Malinche’s Daughter  published in 2006 by Momotombo Press. I really admire the hybrid form you chose for Vessels . I think we often think of genres as being very separate, but Vessels  is a masterpiece of hybridity. It resists our expectations of how a memoir should look by intertwining poems and fictions. When you wrote those first essays in Malinche’s Daughter , did you already know the essays would be contained in a hybrid book like Vessels ? Did you ever have any hesitations about writing a memoir in this way? Were there any books that influenced your writing of this book? MO: Li-Young Lee’s The Winged Seed A Van Jordan’s M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A Harrison, Candelaria, Fletcher Nance Van Winckel’s workshop on hybrid forms  Sandra Cisneros’s Woman Hollering Creek and The House on Mango Street When I wrote Malinche’s Daughter , I was still in my MFA program at Vermont College, and though I was focused on creative nonfiction, I appreciated being in community with poets. (A trusted friend advised me to spend as much time reading and listening to poetry as possible. Write poetry. Read poetry. It will make your prose better.) My grandma’s voice required this hybrid form. The short pieces I call The Grandma Poems started off as overburdened, not-so-lyric essays in which I was trying to put the reader in my grandma’s kitchen or hospital room. It just didn’t work. And then I re-read Woman Hollering Creek  by Sandra Cisneros and remembered how much I loved her short poems with long titles, how the title both rooted and launched the poems. So I went back to my ladened grandma pieces and stripped away everything but her voice. In the end, both on and off the page, it was my grandma’s voice that could make or break anyone in our family.  I remember Denise Chávez starting an Acknowledgments page with “Who says I can’t have 3 pages of Acknowledgments?” So, who says I can’t write a hybrid memoir? I started the book in lyric essays, but the more time I spent with it, the more my grandma and Malinche and Coyolxauhqui asked to be written as poetry. BA: Mythology and history make their way into the book. Did you do research or did you pull this all from prior knowledge and memory? What was your writing process? MO: Yes and yes. Research, memory, dreams, prior knowledge, serendipity.  I don’t know when I first heard the name Malinche, but even that first encounter had echoes of Maxine Hong Kingston’s No Name Woman.  Cortés’s wily interpreter. She was a teenager. She was given to the Spaniards.  I kept trying to go back to a time when women were safe.  The curanderismo course at the University of New Mexico.  Traditional Mexican healers.  Some of these practices seeped into me through ceremony. My own healing journey.  BA: I like the way characters are given nicknames, it reminds me of the way one might tell a story to a friend: Bad Boyfriend, Physician Assistant cousin. Aside from avoiding potential grievances from including real names, it feels like there was also a creative aspect to this decision, creating a universality to these characters. Was this intentional?  MO : For Bad Boyfriend, especially, I wanted to create the feel of an archetype, rather than a traditional character. In early drafts, I felt I was writing the case against a particular partner. See, everyone? See how bad this person was to me? That didn’t serve the narrative or me. Then I tried to make the reader fall in love with this person, just as I had fallen in love in real life. When things finally clicked was when I realized that what mattered was not him or how bad that particular relationship was, but Michelle’s pattern of choosing men who were unavailable.  I also wanted to give the sense that there are so many things over which we have no control. My grandmother’s illness and death hit us suddenly, and as it was happening, the doctors and nurses—even the attendant controlling access to the critical care unit—didn’t feel like human beings with whom we might relate, or who might offer us comfort, but forces delivering life, death, good news, bad news, comfort, distress. For so long, this was also how I felt about romantic love, like relationships were something that happened to me and the object of my affection had the power to accept or reject me.  LV: In the Acknowledgements you write, “One good thing about working on a manuscript for eighteen years is all the helpers who show up along the way.” As much as the myth of the solitary writer persists in popular media, I always appreciate hearing about all the writers who championed and shepherded books into the world. I was moved by the scenes within the memoir where Stephanie and Karen helped you get back home to Las Cruces when you were overwhelmed and grief-struck. It illustrated such radical care from your fellow writers and friends. We should all be so lucky to have fellow writers like that in our lives. How much of the book is shaped by your relationships with other writers? MO: Even the mythical solitary writers had someone to cook and clean for them. I don’t imagine these were healthy relationships for the partners doing the cooking and cleaning.  I wanted a low-residency program because I wanted to stay in my community while I was practicing my craft.  This book wouldn’t exist without my community.  LV: You will be attending the Macondo Writers Workshop as a featured writer this summer. Summer workshops like these are such essential gathering places for writers that often result in lifelong friendships and pivotal spaces that help launch projects in new directions. As a Macondista, has this workshop influenced or guided your work in any ways? Outside of Macondo itself, is there anything you’re looking forward to about spending time in San Antonio? MO: My first Macondo in the summer of 2006 was like an MFA program in one week. I had just returned to the US from Oaxaca. Malinche’s Daughter  had come out a few months before and caused a rift in my family. I came back to the US feeling homeless and untethered. Here I had done this brave thing, and it caused me to lose people I love. I felt like San Sebastián, shot full of arrows, but still alive. What’s the point of speaking the truth if everyone is going to drop you? I cried through Sandra’s critique of my work.  Migas and café con leche at Cascabel. Anything from Vegan Avenue. Michelle Otero is the author of  Vessels: A Memoir of Borders ,  Bosque: Poems , and the essay collection  Malinche's Daughter . She served as Albuquerque Poet Laureate from 2018-2020 and co-edited the  New Mexico Poetry Anthology 2023  and  22 Poems & a Prayer for El Paso,  a tribute to victims of the 2019 El Paso shooting. She is a member of the Macondo Writers Workshop. Brent Ameneyro is the author of the chapbook Puebla (Ghost City Press, 2023) and the collection A Face Out of Clay  (The Center for Literary Publishing, 2024). He is the 2022–2023 Letras Latinas Poetry Coalition Fellow at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies. He currently serves as the Poetry Editor at The Los Angeles Review . Laura Villareal  is a poet and book critic. Her debut poetry collection, Girl’s Guide to Leaving , (University of Wisconsin Press 2022) was awarded Texas Institute of Letters' John A. Robert Johnson Award for a First Book of Poetry and the Writers' League of Texas Book Award for Poetry. Her writing has appeared in Shenandoah, Sho Poetry Journal, AGNI , among others.

March 2024 | Black Lawrence Press ISBN: 9781625570673 | pp. 80 [A note: The images woven among this interview

The original Letras Latinas Blog featured interviews conducted by students at University of Notre Dame The interviews were a mix of genuine scholastic curiosity and an earnest searching for answers to life's Often, these interviews were students' first public engagement with the literary world and, at times, Villamil Durán interviewed Sheryl Luna about her latest collection Magnificent Errors.

You hold several editorial roles such as: Interviews Editor at EcoTheo Review , Senior Book Reviews Editor You’re also a consistent book critic and interviewer. In my editorial roles, that is obviously through reading poems, conducting/sharing interviews, and featuring He is the interviews editor at the EcoTheo Review , senior book reviews editor at Tupelo Quarterly ,

Buy: book of provocations by mónica teresa ortiz | $20 | July 2024 | 110 pages | ISBN: 978-1-7376050-6-5 Laura Villareal (LV): Your chapbook have you ever dreamed of flamingos?   was my first introduction to many of the poems in book of provocations . One of the most admirable qualities of your poetry is your thoughtful engagement with theory, philosophy, politics, and the work of other writers. I’m usually not a fan of notes sections but yours is as rich as the poems themselves. Of your writing process in the notes you wrote, “ I find myself in what Harmony Holiday calls ‘the purgatory between   recovery and relapse,’ searching for poets whose words move us to   act, to ideas that live within poems. For me, poetry is an (in)direct   action, an intersection of commitment and practice.” At what point in your writing life did this focus/ethos crystalize for you?  mónica teresa ortiz (mto): I have always been a curious person. Whenever I read anything, if I see a name, a place, another book, that is mentioned, I look it up. Rabbit holes hate to see me coming. But I want to know who the writer was reading, or what theory led them to the place they arrived. I think historical context and culture is important to being a good reader. And I am also interested in place – what was the architecture of space like for them?  For my notes section, I wrote an excerpt about that “crystallization” in Annulet: A Journal of Poetics, in Spring 2021 . But I had been thinking about those ideas for a long time. Commitments in both politics and poetics are a choice by many before me. I have been blessed enough to be around people who are committed to practice and action. I was only able to articulate it more clearly, after 2020, after COVID-19 came.  LV:  On a similar note to my previous question, your work seems rooted in a line of questioning that considers what a poem can / cannot do, especially how poems live within the greater context of the world. Your poems often mention poems, asking questions like: “what does it mean // that I write // little poems // in wastelands // I call home.” I was very struck by the statement in “un/writing nature,” “ Stella says that poems will transport us to freedom / if I don’t seem that excited / it’s because I am working / to decentralize the poet / to use my words as documentation of specters”  I was reminded of a craft essay by Ana Portnoy Brimmer , where she writes “I like to think of organizing as a site to draft revolutionary poetics, and poetry as a site to revise revolutionary politics. As interlocking affairs.” Poets are always quibbling about the power of poetry in politics. How do you view the capacity of poetry? What are its limits and what are its powers?   mto:  Poetry is not directly material. We aren’t poets to make money. But I do believe poetry can be an intervention in spaces that can disrupt. There is a reason many poets have been assassinated, from Guatemala to Italy to Chile to Lebanon, and even here in the US. Refaat Alareer was assassinated by Israel. Khaliifah ibn Rayford Daniels was murdered by the state. Assata Shakur is still exiled. Why is language so dangerous to the state? Through the mutual aid effort, Workshops for Gaza , I have seen poets, myself included, use what we know and have access to as a material contribution to immediate needs. Workshops for Gaza offers workshops to the public, and instead of the funds going to the facilitator, the funds go directly to Palestinians facing and surviving genocide. That is one way poets can directly impact material needs. We also have to continuously speak out. Since October 7, 2023, there have been many poets who have stood with Palestine. But there are those who refuse to speak, witness, or risk anything. There are poets whose language are interventions as well. I look to Aurielle Marie, Rasha Abdulhadi, George Abraham, Solmaz Sharif, Ariana Brown, Zaina Alsous, Jacqui Germaine, Sasha Banks, Fady Joudah, Harmony Holiday, Mosab Abu Toha, Omar Sakr, some of our living poets. LV:  Oh, I really love that response because it illuminates both the power of language and action. I particularly like the description “poets whose language are interventions…” I think mentioning poems within a poem tricks the brain into snapping back into the reality so we can see what you’re documenting for what it is: intersectional struggles, genocide, climate collapse, and disaster capitalism which is all happening now. Too often new poets are told to “tell all the truth but tell it slant” but I think it’s necessary to also recognize the necessity for clarity in poems that do the work of documentation. When working with poems, how do you decide when to prioritize the explicit and when to embrace the oblique?  mto:  I want to be clear with commitments, even if perhaps sometimes that opposes tradition with poetry and with form. I prioritize an idea or intention, rather than an image. I know that’s not a popular approach, but I began writing poetry after 9/11, during the early onset of the invasion of Afghanistan. My first interactions with living poets were those who were exiled, dispossessed. I don’t know that I embrace the oblique so much as I embrace the truth of what is happening around me.  LV:  I heard recently that Layli Long Soldier won’t use metaphor anymore in active resistance to likening anything to what it's not. It feels essential for us to witness and document with the kind of clarity you use.  Texas is full of exceptional poets like yourself who illuminate our numerous ecoregions and landscapes. The poems in book of provocations  poems transport us to numerous places, but I especially love how vividly you portray the Texas Panhandle’s landscape. How does landscape inform your writing? mto: Gaston Bachelard wrote that “the poet speaks on the threshold of being” in the Poetics of Space . I grew up in a rural place alienated from cities on the threshold of prairies, which existed long before me and will long after me. I look around me and try to be in relation to the land and water around me. To ask for kinship. LV:  I resonate with that as someone who grew up in a rural area. With many of your poems, it feels like they move based on accumulation that results in revelation. The revelations don’t necessarily come at the end of the poems, but there’s a momentum to the imagery you choose to place next to each other. Your poems are so smart and layered and plentiful, so I often feel like I need to sit and think them through.  mto: Thank you. I appreciate that.  LV: You have a couple poems for the Stridentists and in the notes you say, “I’ve long been interested in the Infrarrealist movement and Stridentists, and this book provoked many ideas, including both of these poems.” I don’t think we hear enough about Mexican or Latin American artistic movements, so could you talk about them for those who might not know about them / the movement? How did you learn about them and how has their work informed yours? mto: My MFA is from the University of Texas at El Paso, and most of my classmates were Latin Americans. They were from Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Chile, and Mexico. That broadened my literary landscape. They introduced me to books that informed much of my understanding of Latin American politics and history. I also lived in Barranquilla, Colombia in 2008 and in 2009, and I read a lot of Colombian writers and poets then. I began to learn that many movements circulated in Mexico, Central and Latin America. Like the surrealists – Andre Breton and Leonora Carrington – who spent time in Mexico, and the influence of the Avant Garde around the 1920s, gave rise to the Stridentist. Manuel Maples Arce was one poet I became interested in. There’s a book on the Stridentist Movement, by Elissa J. Rashkin, who quotes Maples Arce: “the artist creates his own truths and meanings” but also that “truth is subjective; meaning is unstable and depends on context.” So I found that interesting – provocative if you will… but for me, it really always returns to Bolaño and Infrarrealismo in the 1970s, which is birthed in between the Tlatelolco Massacre in Mexico City in 1968 and the assassination of Allende in Chile in 1973. It is a complex history, but the appeal for me is the idea that poets can have commitments to ideas other than poetry. So that’s where I hope to place my work. But I am also blessed to be learning constantly from contemporary Central American artists, poets, and filmmakers that also inform my work. Liberation is not just an idea, but a word, and a practice. I think that’s what I have carried with me from these other poets.  LV:  Your book is split into 3 sections titled “terrestrial,” “celestial,” and “afterlife.” I like the idea of a book being divided into these more mythic landscapes. Could you talk a bit about the process of organizing book of provocations ?  mto: I organized the collection while I was in Mérida. During that time, poet Ariana Brown held several workshops on organizing and assembling a poetry manuscript, which was amazing. She’s a great facilitator. We read Sasha Banks’ book, america, Mine . That workshop was instrumental in the process of organizing my collection. And just being there in the Yucatan, learning about Maya history in Mexico. And of course, I have to give a lot of credit to my editors, Claire Bowman and Annar Veröld. I gave them bones and they sculpted it into a body.   mónica teresa ortiz (they / them) is a poet, memory worker, and critic born, raised, and based in Texas. Laura Villareal   is a poet and book critic. Her debut poetry collection, Girl’s Guide to Leaving , (University of Wisconsin Press 2022) was awarded Texas Institute of Letters' John A. Robert Johnson Award for a First Book of Poetry and the Writers' League of Texas Book Award for Poetry. Her writing has appeared in Shenandoah, Sho Poetry Journal, AGNI , among others.

Buy: Hemisferio Cuir An Anthology of Young Queer Latin American Poetry | fourteen poems | March 2025 | 220 pages | ISBN: 9781738487158   Laura Villareal (LV): I’m always interested in the process of putting together an anthology because it can be so different from editor to editor. What was the process like in curating, translating, and editing Hemisferio Cuir ? Did you have prior knowledge of each contributor’s work?   Leo Boix (LB): The process was truly inspiring. It began with my efforts to compile a report on contemporary Latin American poetry for the Poetry Translation Centre (PTC) in London, which subsequently led me to translate the works of Argentine poet Diana Bellessi, who is regarded by many as the godmother of lesbian poetry in Argentina. During this endeavour, which took me many months, I recognised the pressing need for an anthology of young queer voices from Latin America, as I could not locate any anthology of this nature in English. It was through the process of researching emerging voices in the region that the concept of an anthology of young queer Latin American poets began to take shape. Several anthologies inspired me throughout this journey, including The Other Tiger: Recent Poetry from Latin America by Richard Gwyn, The Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology , edited by Cecilia Vicuña and Ernesto Livon- Grosman, Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color by Christopher Soto, and The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry by Francisco Aragón, to name but a few. These anthologies were seminal to my research and led me to conclude the need to address this significant gap. I had begun translating some of these voices, including those of Argentine Silvia Giaganti, Colombian trans poet Flor Bárcenas Feria, and Peruvian Fiorella Terrazas. I then undertook the gradual process of contacting editors, translators, poets and colleagues both in Latin America and beyond to expand my research and compile a list of exciting new voices from the entire spectrum of the LGBTQAI+ community, including those from the trans and BIPOC communities, indigenous groups, from endangered languages, and regions outside traditional urban centres. I consulted online zines, anthologies, poetry magazines, and books, and received numerous recommendations from poets and colleagues in both the UK and Latin America. The list of poets grew, and with it, the links connecting each poem and poet built into a map of literary voices that was exciting and thought-provoking. I proposed the initial project to fourteen poems, a London-based poetry publisher, spotlighting the most exciting LGBTQ+ poets in anthologies and pamphlets. They promptly accepted my proposal, marking the moment when the seminal idea transformed into a tangible anthology.     LV: As far as the translation of each poet’s work, how closely did you work with the poets? I know some poet-translator teams go back and forth a lot and some don’t at all.   LB: That’s such a fascinating question. I've had the wonderful opportunity to work closely with poets who are also translators, like the talented Argentinean Paula Galíndez. We delved into translation from various viewpoints, discussing specific words and terms from both Argentine and UK perspectives. In some instances, I was given the creative freedom to make decisions, either because the poet didn’t speak English or they kindly allowed me to take the lead. One memorable project involved a poem by Argentine Washington Atencio, which we beautifully translated together during a Poetry Translation Centre workshop I led at the Ledbury Poetry Festival in 2024, with the invaluable assistance of the brilliant translator John Herring. I also had the joy of including poems by the Puerto Rican poet Myr Olivares, translated through the close collaboration of celebrated poet and translator Roque Raquel Salas Rivera. I approached each poem with a personal touch, sometimes paying extra attention to pronouns, complex ideas and wordplay in Spanish, and at other times tackling the challenge of translating a sonnet, like with Salvadoran poet Alberto López Serrano, while carefully preserving the rhyming schemes and internal rhythm in my English translations. Each poem was unique, deserving of special care and attention, and I truly cherished the challenge of bringing them into English, despite it not being my first language. Writing poetry in both Spanish and English is a journey I deeply enjoy, and one that informs my work as a translator.   LV: I felt very moved by many of the poems especially “[Post]humous Poem” by Alejandra Rosa Morales, “Enunciation Displacement” by Pablo Romero, and “But if I’m honest” by Paula Galíndez. You very generously, but succinctly, encapsulate the strengths of all the anthology poets in your introduction. Each poet has such a distinct voice and approach to poetics. As you were translating, did you encounter any challenges or revelations?   LB: What a lovely selection! Each poem in the anthology presented its own unique, distinctive challenge during translation, whether in form, concept, syntax or music. Yet, they also offered me an exciting chance to discover a specific topic or a personal and collective truth, which inspired me as a poet and a translator. From the very beginning of this book project, my goal was to include as many poems and poets with distinctive voices as possible, showcasing works that explore a wide array of themes relevant to today’s Latin America, particularly in the context of the rising anti-trans and anti-LGBTQAI+ rights all over the world that were hard-fought. These themes and preoccupations ranged from family relationships and queer identities to issues of discrimination and trans experiences, while also exploring all forms of love, loss, and sexual desire in the context of a post-patriarchal society.   LV: You’ve been a wonderful advocate for Latinx writers over the years. Letras Latinas collaborated with you on Season 2 of Curated Conversation(s): A Latinx Poetry Show to showcase UK poets and put them in conversation with US based poets. I think you’re uniquely positioned to answer a few questions. The first being: what areas of global Latinx literature need tending to? Where can people pitch in to help make the work accessible in their respective countries? And second, since this anthology is the first of its kind in much of the English-speaking world, what are your personal hopes and aspirations for this anthology? LB: So many vibrant areas of global Latinx literature truly deserve our attention and support. We still need to shine a spotlight on BIPOC Latinx writers, as well as those who are using endangered languages, and those who are disabled or neurodivergent, which sadly have been marginalised for too long. Let's also uplift the voices of Latinx and Latin American writers from communities who are facing increasing attacks, including trans, migrant, and refugee writers. We should also celebrate the creativity of polylingual Latinx writers who courageously push the boundaries of literary genres and explore other art forms in their work. While we have a lot of progress to make and the current challenges are many, projects like Hemisferio Cuir are taking us in the right direction. I hope this anthology reaches as many audiences as possible, shining a light on the incredible work of the poets featured in Hemisferio Cuir —many of whom have never had their voices translated into English before. My goal is to inspire others, both in our community and beyond, to continue their fight for expression and equality. The response from audiences in the UK has been incredible, and we are already planning launches in Los Angeles, England, and Latin America.   Watch contributors from Hemisferio Cuir read their poems Note: Pablo Jofre's video was directed by Sailin Carbonell and Leonardo Blanco Photo Credit: Naomi Woods Leo Boix is a bilingual Latinx poet born in Argentina who lives and works in London and Deal, Kent, UK. His debut English collection Ballad of a Happy Immigrant  (Chatto & Windus, 2021), was awarded the Poetry Book Society Wild Card Choice. It was selected as one of the best five books of poetry by The Guardian (August 2021). Boix second English collection, Southernmost: Sonnets ,  is forthcoming with Chatto & Windus (Penguin Random House) in June 2025. He has also authored two poetry collections in Spanish, Un Lugar Propio  (2015) and Mar de Noche  (2017), with Letras del Sur Editora, Argentina. He is the main editor and translator of Hemisferio Cuir: An Anthology of Young Queer Latin American Poetry (fourteen poems, 2025). Boix has also translated many Latin American poets into English, including Diana Bellessi, José Watanabe, Liliana Ancalao, Cecilia Vicuña, Oscar David López and Jorge Eduardo Eielson. He has been included in many anthologies, such as the Forward book of poetry, Ten: Poets of the New Generation (Bloodaxe), The Best New British and Irish Poets Anthology 2019-2020 (BlackSpring Press), Islands Are But Mountains: Contemporary Poetry from Great Britain (Platypus Press), 100 Poems to Save the Earth (Seren Books), Why I Write Poetry (Nine Arches Press), 100 Queer Poems (Vintage/Penguin), Até Mais/Until More: An Anthology of Latinx Futurisms, (Deep Vellum), Un Nuevo Sol: British Latinx Writers (flipped eye), Mapping the Future: The Complete Works Poets (Bloodaxe), among others. His poems have appeared in many national and international journals, including POETRY, PN Review, The Poetry Review, World Literature Today, Modern Poetry in Translation, and Poetry London. Boix is a fellow of The Complete Works program, co-director of Un Nuevo Sol, an Arts Council England national scheme to nurture new voices of Latinx writers in the UK, an advisory board member of the Poetry Translation Centre and a board member of Magma Poetry. He has written poems commissioned by Royal Kew Gardens, the National Poetry Library, Tate Modern, Whitstable Biennale, Bradford Literary Festival, Estuary Festival, Un Nuevo Sol, La Linea Festival and the Kent Mining Museum in England. He received the Bart Wolffe Poetry Prize Award, the Keats-Shelley Prize, a PEN Award, and The Society of Authors’ Foundation and K. Blundell Trust. Order a copy of Leo's forthcoming book Southernmost: Sonnets (Penguin Random House) Laura Villareal is the author of Girl’s Guide to Leaving  (University of Wisconsin Press, 2022). She earned her MFA at Rutgers University—Newark and has been awarded fellowships and scholarships from the Stadler Center for Poetry and Literary Arts, National Book Critics Circle’s Emerging Critics Program, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and the Dobie Paisano Fellowship Program at University of Texas-Austin. Her writing has appeared in Guernica , Poetry Magazine , AGNI , The American Poetry Review , and elsewhere.

I said recently in another interview that I thought writing my way through all of this would heal me,

TRP: The University Press of SHSU) | September 1, 2024 Note: Frontextos are woven throughout the interview