Pat Mora
Sonia Sanchez and Pat Mora are two contributors to Beacon's "Bluestreak" series of innovative literary writing featuring works by women of all colors. Those who attended this evening workshop heard these two poets discuss and read from their work.
Pat Mora's works include Aunt Carmen's Book of Practical Saints, House of Houses, and Agua Santa: Holy Water.
Before reading her poems, Ms. Mora told a little of the "back story" of what was happening when she wrote them and what the poems meant to her. Many of Ms. Mora's poems reflect her Latino-American Catholic upbringing and her fondly irreverent feelings toward her heritage. She tells, and her poems tell, of real and imaginary people; of the sacred and the everyday; of women's minds and women's bodies; of joys and sorrows; and of the living and the dead.
"Saint Liberata," from Aunt Carmen's Book of Practical Saints
I hide you in a drawer. "No female bodies,"
the priest frowns. "Don't bring those crazy legends
into this church. No women on crosses."
I read, old book in old hands, the mystery,
the history of pain, but men don't listen.
I share your story with other women.I tell them of your mother, a woman
with nine baby girls growing in her body
while the king salivates for sons. She just listens.
Why do we seem so passive in legends,
pretty ornaments? It's a mystery
since the women I know, know crosses.
Sonia Sanchez's books include Shake Loose My Skin, Like the Singing Coming Off the Drums, and Does Your House Have Lions?
Ms. Sanchez's normal speech is unusually metaphoric and melodic, sounding very much like poetry. It's difficult at first to tell whether she is reading a poem or talking about it. Her subjects are diverse, and include love and passion, the spirituality of African American women, gay subculture, and political activism.
Two poems from Like the Singing Coming Off the Drums
...I ammmmmmmm
the universe knows that
I ammmmmmm
hiv positive but I ammm
still. woman. lover. mother.
sistah. artist. organizer. activist.
woman...I gather up
each sound
you left behind
and stretch them
on our bed.
each nite
I breathe you
and become high.
Reported by Gila Jones, formatted for the web by Margy Levine Young
