May 2013 Conversations with Las Comadres: Teleconference Series
Rebozos — Outside Links: Book Author Publisher
A Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying — Outside Links: Book Author Publisher
Codex of Journeys: Bendito Camino — Outside Links: Book Author Publisher
LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW Length: 01:12:03 | Size: 12.97 MB
May 2013 Book of the Month
Rebozos
By Dr. Carmen Tafolla
Published by Wings Press
ISBN-13: 978-1594487484
978-0916727987
The Mexican rebozo is more than a woman’s garment. Yes, it is a rectangle of cloth that can be worn as a shawl or scarf, but it is also a simple tool that has become a cultural icon. An essential element of daily life for centuries, one might say it is a physical manifestation of Mexican womanhood a silent witness to every state of life: a tool of daily labor, a sling to carry children, a shield from weather or from prying eyes, finally either an heirloom or a shroud. At the same time, the manner of its wearing can express every emotion, from shy seduction to sorrow, from flaunted status to simple joys and fears.
Catalina Gárate’s paintings capture what she calls “this unifying element, the rebozo,” which has been for the artist “a theme of profound personal significance.” The rebozo is symbolic of the mestizo blending of peoples in Mexico, and it is used at every level of society. From the expensive Otomí rebozos of San Luis Potosi to the common rebozo de bolita, this garment is an integral part of Mexican life. Gárate is hardly the first artist to be inspired by the rebozo. Several of Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits show her wearing rebozos from different regions of Mexico. The great photographer of the Mexican Revolution, Agustín Casasola, often captured soldaderas wearing rebozos. Novelist Sandra Cisneros used the idea of the rebozo as a binding metaphor in her novel, Caramelo.
Poet Carmen Tafolla was “haunted by Gárate’s paintings” and by the voices of Mexican and Mexican-American women. She found poetry in those images and voices and she “painted those colors into poetry, those expressions of posture and stance into voice…. The words of these women in the paintings are, like rebozos themselves, both soft and strong. The poetry lies in the courage of their lives.”
About the Author: Dr. Carmen Tafolla
The internationally renowned author of more than twenty books and one of the most highly anthologized of Latina writers, Dr. Carmen Tafolla has published an impressive array of works for both children and adults, and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the prestigious Americas Award, presented to her at the Library of Congress in 2010, two Tomas Rivera Book Awards, two ALA Notable Books, a Charlotte Zolotow, the Art of Peace Award, Top Ten Books for Babies, and recognition by the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies for work which “gives voice to the peoples and cultures of this land.”
Newly named by Mayor Julian Castro as the first Poet Laureate of the City of San Antonio, Tafolla has been called a “world-class writer” by Roots author Alex Haley, and has long been considered one of the madrinas of Chicana Literature. She is currently at work on the adult biography of early civil rights organizer Emma Tenayuca.
May 2013 Additional Conversation
A Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying
By Laurie Ann Guerrero
Published by University of Notre Dame Press; 1st Edition
ISBN-13: 978-0268010478
Filled with the nuanced beauty and complexity of the everyday—a pot of beans, a goat carcass, embroidered linens, a grandfather’s cancer—A Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying journeys through the inherited fear of creation and destruction.
The histories of South Texas and its people unfold in Laurie Ann Guerrero’s stirring language, including the dehumanization of men and its consequences on women and children. Guerrero’s tongue becomes a palpable border, occupying those liminal spaces that both unite and divide, inviting readers to consider that which is known and unknown: the body. Guerrero explores not just the right, but the ability to speak and fight for oneself, one’s children, one’s community—in poems that testify how, too often, we fail to see the power reflected in the mirror.
About the Author: Laurie Ann Guerrero
Laurie Ann Guerrero received the Academy of American Poets Prize, among others, at Smith College. Winner of the 2012 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize, her first full-length collection, A Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying, selected by Francisco X. Alarcon, is forthcoming from the University of Notre Dame Press, 2013.
Guerrero’s poetry and critical work have appeared or are forthcoming in Huizache, Texas Monthly, Acentos Review, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Palo Alto Review, Global City Review, Texas Observer, Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism, Feminist Studies and others.
Born and raised in the Southside of San Antonio, Guerrero holds a B.A. in English Language & Literature from Smith College and an MFA from Drew University. Guerrero’s chapbook, Babies Under the Skin (2008), won the Panhandler Publishing Award, chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye. A CantoMundo fellow and member of the Macondo Writers’ Workshop, she has recently joined the editorial staff at Austin-based Dos Gatos Press, publishers of The Texas Poetry Calendar. Guerrero is on the faculty at the University of the Incarnate Word and in the MFA in Creative Writing program at the University of Texas, El Paso.
May 2013 Additional Conversation
Codex of Journeys: Bendito Camino
By Liliana Valenzuela
Published by Mouthfeel Press
ISBN-13: 978-098304356
Journey into the world of borders, from Ghana to Cuba to Texas, Valenzuela weaves a road in forms of poetry, and we glimpse what it is like to be a woman of color in a world filled with cultural and gender insecurities.
Here are poems that cry out injustices and yet, celebrate the perfection of identity, self, and culture.
These are a Spanish and English collection, with some poems translated by Angela McEwan, award-winning translator.
About the Author: Liliana Valenzuela
Valenzuela is the 2006 recipient of the Alicia Gordon Award for Word Artistry in Translation. An award-winning poet and essayist whose work has appeared in The Edinburgh Review, Indiana Review, Tigertail, and other journals and publications.
Valenzuela is also a dynamic performer, recently engaged to record the audiobook edition of La casa en Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros for Random House Audio. A past Director of the American Translators Association, she has translated literary works, art and photography books, museum catalogs, and web sites.
Liliana Valenzuela is the acclaimed Spanish language translator of works by Sandra Cisneros, Julia Alvarez, Denise Chávez, Nina Marie Martínez, Ana Castillo, Dagoberto Gilb, Richard Rodríguez, Rudolfo Anaya, Cristina García, Gloria Anzaldúa, and many other writers.
Born and raised in Mexico City, Liliana is an adopted Tejana. She received a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Cultural Anthropology and Folklore from the University of Texas at Austin, where she lives with her family.