Poetry is like a song, like a
psalm, like a prayer. Poetry is different things to many people, and April
being Poetry Month,
The Latina Book Club is
celebrating by featuring Latino poets all week long.
We’d like to welcome poet
Yolanda A. Reid. She’s written two novels and has a collection of poems,
SONNETS TO THE JAPIM BIRD, coming out this June. The collection is a series of mesmerizing
poems set in Brazil depicting the forbidden love between an Amazonian
indigenous woman (a Tupi-Kawahib) and her husband’s guest (a European explorer). Here is a small sonnet for our reading
pleasure. (Note: Yolanda is donating 10% of the ebook proceeds to Amazon
Watch.)
(X)
Compare you? What to? Neither
amethysts
Nor diamonds evoke a love
immortal,
Faithful, honoured, untinged
by betrayal,
Unhindered and unhindering; my
wrists
Glittered with these stones,
ago–we’d not kissed
Then: I was yet a child. My
girlhood hails
Diamonds–dozens of them–in
sedimented pails;
By elfin hands pitched in,
they clicked and hissed.
No.–Endow me yourself, and
I’ll compare
You to many other selves I
behold:
Yourself, in love; yourself
ecstatic, far;
Yourself right-seeming,
true-speaking, and bold;
Yourself in thought or
overwrought.–You choose
The self, and I, the one on
which I muse.
©Yolanda A. Reid. Permission
granted to reprint. All rights reserved by author.
A CHAT WITH POET YOLANDA A.
REID
Q: Where did your
interest in poetry come from? From parents, school, other?
Yolanda: My
grandfather used to recite poetry often, all the time, when I was a child. I
still have a poetry book that he read as a schoolboy. So I cannot remember ever
not hearing poems. Then I began writing my own little poems that my grandmother
no doubt saved, but which are now either lost or in the attic. As a child, I
also kept beautiful notebooks that I illustrated on one side and wrote the poem
on the other. At the same
time, I think my parents surrounded us with lots of books, encouraged us
to read and write. That was life-sustaining for me.
Q: Tell us about your upcoming poetry collection. How long
did it take you to gather all your poems? What themes are you exploring?
Yolanda: SONNETS TO
THE JAPIM BIRD is the love story of an indigenous woman of the
Tupi-Kawahib tribe and her husband's guest. It's a love triangle set in the
Brazilian rainforest. I'd been reading about indigenous culture for three or
four months, as I'm interested in anthropology. I was so fascinated with the
culture and customs.
Once I decided to write these sonnets, the actual writing
took about 5 weeks. I wrote a poem per day, about forty in all. I'd say the
entire process took about 5 months. And I was emotionally exhausted after
writing them. Some Amazonian indigenous tribes isolate a teenage girl when she
reaches puberty. For a year, she is placed inside a small hut by herself, apart
from her family and the rest of the tribe. Writing this series of sonnets felt
very much like that.
Some months after I finished SONNETS TO THE JAPIM BIRD, I
wrote three or four more poems unrelated to this theme. I have not written a
poem since. That is when I truly began writing fiction--which feels more
expansive, less restrictive. In general, the themes are infidelity,
love, hospitality, the city vs. environment/nature, romance. These sonnets make
up about half of all the poems I've ever written.
Q: Do you think poetry
is a lost art regulated to one month of the year?
Yolanda: I wouldn't
say that poetry is a "lost art"--just a very exclusive one. I think
we have to think of poetry in new ways. In pop culture today, rap is the New
Poetry (and some of it is very good). Also, there are poetry-slams. In my
grandfather's time, people recited long passages of poetry effortlessly. Today,
not so much. It's worth noting that the more traditional poets/poems do have
their devoted audience, but it's a very small exclusive--at times,
elitist--niche.
Q: Who are your
favorite poets--Latino and non-Latino?
Yolanda: I was about thirteen years old when I memorized a
little poem by a virtually unknown poet. Occasionally, that poem floats into my
mind. In graduate school, I studied the Romantic Poets. Somehow those
poets and their poems come back to me often. But I feel I modelled
myself on women poets because the female voice in a poem is very personal.
Sylvia Plath is a poet who had a major life-altering influence on me. I first
read her when I was about 20 years old. (I wrote a blogpost about that
experience; read it by clicking here.) Marianne Moore also had a major influence. I took
books out of the local library to read her poetry. I was amazed by it.
In college, I did not read Latino authors or about Latino
culture until after I graduated. Even so, I think I read, maybe two poems by
Pablo Neruda and that was probably because he was a Nobel laureate. Then, maybe
ten or fifteen years ago, I spent a year reading Latina authors. It was a task
I set for myself. Of those authors, Sandra Cisneros is a poet, though more
well-known for her novels. (I met her once at a poetry reading many years ago.)
I've read and admired some of her poetry. I was on the internet surfing
yesterday and found a copy of Neruda's sonnets and I thought, Maybe I should
read this.
For this poetry collection, my main inspiration was Elizabeth
Barrett Browning and her book, SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE. Those famous--now
classic--love poems were written for her husband.
Q: Tell us about yourself and your writing. Please share your
social media addresses with our readers.
Yolanda: After this, I'll concentrate on writing my fourth
book. Just lots of prose. I feel I am at a crossroads in my real life and
writing life. I recently re-read a Robert Frost poem, which I found
online by accident. "The Road Not Taken"--which I first read and
liked as a teen. Only now, though, can I truly appreciate it.
Last year, I devoted myself to learning Chinese and immersing
in Chinese culture and authors. I marvel at their writing (in translation): it
seems so new, so distinctive. Going forward, I'd like someday to
executive-produce an art film of either one of my novels (like author Esmeralda
Santiago). Also, I taught a poetry workshop many years ago. I think I might
like to do that again.
Also, I want to complete as many of the books that I've
imagined and written down notes/chapters for.
Just 2 or 3 days ago, I was reading a novel I began writing years ago
and had mapped out. I wrote 3 or 4 chapters, then abandoned it. Today I think
it's pretty good.
I'd love to discover the secrets of truly prolific writers.
By that I mean, they actually complete and publish twenty or thirty books,
sometimes every couple of years. I recently read an interview of Louise
Erdrich--I've read and admired her work. I am in awe of the discipline. I get
lots of ideas, too many perhaps. I write lots of notes, sometimes chapters, and
maybe ten or more drafts of each chapter. I am meticulous about words. So only
a fraction of the projects I work on actually get to completion or sees the
light of day. Yet, I'm fortunate, because once in a while a vision or a
theme or a character or an idea takes hold and will not let go until it's
written to completion.
Readers can contact Yolanda at any of the following addresses:
www.yreidbooks.blogspot.com (blog)
www.twitter.com/YolandaAReid
http://www.goodreads.com/yolanda_areid
https://allpoetry.com/Yolanda_A._Reid
www.yreidbooks.blogspot.com (blog)
www.twitter.com/YolandaAReid
http://www.goodreads.com/yolanda_areid
https://allpoetry.com/Yolanda_A._Reid
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