The Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize is pleased to announce...

Ruth Irupé Sanabria

Lorna Dee Cervantes writes:

BEASTS BEHAVE IN FOREIGN LAND

Part prayer. Part testimony. All heart. Beasts Behave In Foreign Land refuses to lie down and be quiet, refuses to compromise beauty or the beast: the beast we carry within, the one forged in us through multiple denials. This book, with its confident and competent voice and diverse ways of seeing, leads us into and out of the labyrinth of the self and the labyrinths of history — presents Herstory with its torture and song. This book sings. This book tells the truth, the truth of “our vacuous beginning on the highway/ and the big inevitable bang.”

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Ruth Irupé Sanabria writes:

Last March, my mother and I found ourselves in the Catskills, amazed by a herd of deer that darted through the snow and took refuge in the woods, yet remained close enough to keep an eye on us. My mother recalled Cuban poet José Martí’s, Versos Sencillos, “Mi verso es un ciervo herido/que busca en el monte amparo,” and wondered what inspiration the deer of the Catskills might have had on the imagery of Martí’s poem of Cuban identity and resistance, which he drafted during a stay in the Catskills. In Versos Sencillos, Martí wrote “Yo vengo de todas partes,/ Y hacia todas partes voy/ Arte soy entre las artes,/ En los montes, monte soy.” Like Martí’s Versos, Latina/o literature is, at times, a nomadic literature that examines and defies notions of foreignness and alienation while channeling a people’s struggle and history, a commitment to freedom and justice, and a desire to burn with love and beauty. It is a seriously nuanced literature of political and poetic imagination to rival any. I am honored that my manuscript was chosen by Lorna Dee Cervantes as the recipient of the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize. I am deeply grateful and forever indebted to her for her prolific body of work and generous spirit. I am equally thankful to Red Hen Press and Letras Latinas, the literary initiative of the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for the Latino Studies.

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Ruth Irupé Sanabria was born in Bahía Blanca, Argentina. When she was 18-months-old, soldiers invaded her home, kidnapped her mother, and handed Ruth Irupé over to strangers. Ruth Irupé was later recovered by her maternal grandparents. Her parents survived secret detention in a concentration camp called La Escuelita and months later, they were illegally imprisoned in maximum security prisons for their political beliefs. Nearly 3 years later, her parents were offered the option to enter the United States as political refugees. Ruth Irupé grew up between D.C. and Seattle.

Ruth Irupé moved to New Jersey to pursue a BA in English and Puerto Rican and Hispanic Caribbean Studies from Rutgers University. She earned her MFA in Poetry from NYU. Ruth Irupé's first full-length collection of poems, The Strange House Testifies (Bilingual Press), won 2nd place (Poetry) in the 2010 Annual Latino Book Awards for Poetry. Her poems have appeared in anthologies such as Women Writing Resistance, Poets Against the War, and U.S. Latino Literature Today. She has read her poetry in libraries, prisons, schools, parks, bars, and universities across the USA, Mexico, and Peru. She works as a high school English teacher and lives with her husband and three children in Perth Amboy, N.J.

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William Archila and Ruth Irupé Sanabria, as participants of Letras Latinas' multi-year Latino/a Poetry Now initiative, took part in a roundtable poetics discussion, moderated by Lauro Vazquez, at the website of the Poetry Society of America. 

Archila's manuscript, The Gravedigger's Archaeology, was selected by Orlando Ricardo Menes as winner of the previous Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize, and is forthcoming in 2015. 

Sanabria's book will be published in 2017.

Ruth Irupé Sanabria’s The Strange House Testifies (Bilingual Review Press, 2009)

Back in November when installment one of Latino/a Poetry Now kicked-off with the Poetry Society of America’s second roundtable featuring Rosa Alcalá, Eduardo C. Corral, and Aracelis Girmay, I offered you this synopsis of that e-conversation.  I remember being deeply moved by Maria Melendez’s closing statements: Speaking on the issue of race and other barriers of exclusion that emerge in this discussion, Maria Melendez manages  to reaffirm her belief in the need for these three poets “to be more widely read, heard, and discussed” as an antidote to exclusion.

And now that installment two of Latino/a Poetry Now has concluded I find that Maria Melendez’s preoccupation with a lack appreciation and exposure to this new generation of poets showcased in this national reading series contributes to a form of censorship that is more silent but by no means less excluding than that of book banning. For example, in preparing for this e-conversation between Ruth Irupé Sanabria and William Archila, nowhere did I find a single book review or piece of literary criticism on Ruth Irupé Sanabria’s The Strange House Testifies.  In an attempt to breach this gap (even if it is just a little) I humbly offer you here my own book review of Ruth Irupé Sanabria’s The Strange House Testifies.

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In her first book-length collection of poems, The Strange House Testifies (Bilingual Press, 2009) Ruth Irupé Sanabria explores the power of language to destroy and re-create. The book, while divided into three sections, reads as a two-part book. In the opening half of the collection Sanabria opens up with poems that explore the genocidal dictatorship that began in 1976 and which was responsible for the deaths and disappearances of thousands of Argentineans:

            It was the first reunion for MR. and Mrs. S—

            and their 4-year-old daughter

            since Argentine police arrested the parents

            at their home on Jan. 12, 1977

            and imprisoned them on

            unspecified charges.

            Mrs. S— commented that she had been kept

            in a 9-foot by 9-foot prison cell

            for almost three years and thousands

            like her are still in prison in Argentina.

            “Yesterday was the first time in three years

            I have been able to touch my daughter,” she said.

                        I vomited in the clouds

                        above the ocean

                        between Buenos Aires and New Orleans[…]

                        One stewardess gave me a hard American mint,

                        red and white, to suck on

                        and pinned a pair of plastic wings on my chest;   

                        said it was the shock of clouds

                        that had made me sick (6-7)

The poet’s juxtaposition of the language of official narratives, of Nunca Mas (the official report of the Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared and which documents the human rights abuses), with the language of poetry offers not only a new insight into social justice but also into poetry itself. While a poem alone may do little to stop the historical, social and economic forces that create conditions of suffering for the innocent, these poems remind us that a literature that is deeply immersed with the problems of its times can only but aid in resisting through language—like here:

            When a family which was to be chupada, had children, the

            following methods were employed:

            1  The children were left with neighbors to be looked after[…]

            3  The children might themselves be abducted and eventually

                 adopted by a member of the armed forces […]

            6  They could be taken to the secret detention centre, where they

                 would witness the tortures inflicted on their parents, or they

                might themselves be tortured in front of their parents. Many of

                these children are now among the list of “disappeared.”

            Behold apricot chin,

            toddler nostrils,

            flared and boogered.

            And this one, glossy whites of eyes rolled,

            just a quarter moon of honey showing.

            Or here, sweetly milk-toothed and swinging on the walnut tree,

            and oblivious playing with blue toy blow-dryer

            in a box of brown sand. (17)

Or here:

            I would transform

            helicopters

  into seed

            and nectar loving

            birds colored lilac (74)

The second section follows the adventures of “ghetto girl” and explores—through poems infused with the music of Latinos and jazz and the everyday rhythms of African-American and Latino speech(s)—the racism and violence of growing up Latina in the U.S.: “I arrive unannounced” declares ghetto girl:

           trappin’ and slappin’

           your ignorance

 with my brown

 cape

this is no super joke[…]

and we’re coming

to a theater near you

to rescue

all the spics and niggas

stuck in naked freeze frames

big butt monkey sex scenes

illiterate dope dealin’ rice and beans

stereotypes

in

stereo sound (45)

And here too the poet dares to summon the hallucinating bird of poetic language, bird that has landed

          upon our rusted chain link fence

          has escaped

not only the cage

but complete ownership. (63)

Bird that “does not trust human hands” and sings a “wild-wing-growing” and shoots free through the roof of the earth.  

Latino/a Poetry Now in Washington, D.C.

I think the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University may have set some sort of record: the event was on Tuesday and the video of the reading and the moderated Q& A afterwards is already up on their website, thanks to Caitlin Tyler-Richards. It's nicely produced with proper credits and even some soundtrack at the beginning and the end: John Coltrane's "Giant Steps" (curated by William Archila):

Ruth Irupé Sanabria(as read by Carolyn Forché) and William Archila | 2011-2012 Readings and Talks Series from Lannan Center on Vimeo.

In this regard, it's quite nice to have video documentation for readers of Letras Latinas Blog. Ruth Irupé Sanabria was not able to be there, as planned, as she is giving birth to her daughter this week. But as you will see in this video, Carolyn Forché was stellar: she read a statement Ruth wrote for the occasion, and followed by reading some of Ruth's poems. William Archila then read his work, and took part in a moderated discussion with Darrel Alejandro Holnes of the Poetry Society of America. It's all there: yes, watching this video supposes an investment of time, but one well worth it. So make a date with yourself in the near future, sit back, and enjoy. In the meantime, here are a few photos, courtesy of Dan Vera:

Carolyn Forché reading the work
of Ruth Irupé Sanabria

William Archila

William at the podium

William and Darrel Alejandro Holnes

Notre Dame's national series with PSA continues

Letras Latinas, the literary program of the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies (ILS), in collaboration with the Poetry Society of America (PSA),  presents the second installment of “Latino/a Poetry Now,” a multi-year initiative that launched at Harvard University last November, and concludes at Notre Dame in October of 2013.

Georgetown University will host this national tour on March 20th in a collaboration with their Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice. Additional sponsors include the Library of Congress’ Hispanic Division and Poetry and Literature Center, respectively.

The featured artists are Salvadoran-born poet William Archila and Argentinian-born poet Ruth Irupé Sanabria. Archila’s distinctions include an International Latino Book Award for his collection, The Art of Exile. Sanabria is the author of the acclaimed book, The Strange House Testifies.

Both Archila and Sanabria discuss their work in a dialogue moderated by Notre Dame M.F.A. candidate Lauro Vazquez, which appears on PSA’s website. “These online discussions are a crucial element of “Latino/a Poetry Now,” said Francisco Aragón, the director of Letras Latinas. “Our hope is that they serve as pedagogical tools in the classroom,” he added. Before Archila and Sanabria give their public presentation in Washington, D.C., they will be visiting the Lannan seminar on the Georgetown campus, where their work is being taught this semester.

Letras Latinas, the literary program of the Institute for Latino Studies, seeks to enhance the visibility, appreciation and study of Latino literature, both on and off the campus of the University of Notre Dame, with a focus on projects that identify and support emerging voices.

The nation’s oldest poetry organization, the Poetry Society of America was founded in 1910 for the purpose of creating a public forum for the advancement, enjoyment, and understanding of poetry. Through a diverse array of programs, initiatives, contests and awards, the PSA works to build a larger audience for poetry, to encourage a deeper appreciation of the art, and to place poetry at the crossroads of American life.


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Note: a  photo gallery of Emma Trelles' recent visit to Washington, D.C. is forthcoming, as well as visual documentation of the second installment of Latino/a Poetry Now.