Lorna Dee Cervantes
Lorna Dee Cervantes (born August 6, 1954) is an award-winning Chicana, of Mexican and Native American (Chumash), ancestry. She is a feminist, activist poet who is considered one of the major Chicana poets of the past 40 years. She has been described by Alurista, as "probably the best Chicana poet active today.
Biography
Cervantes was born in 1954 in the Mission District of San Francisco. After her parents divorced when she was five, she grew up in San Jose with her mother, grandmother and brother. She grew up speaking English exclusively. This was strictly enforced by her parents, who allowed only English to be spoken at home by her and her brother. This was to avoid the racism that was occurring in her community at that time. This loss of language and a struggle to find her true identity helped inspire her poetry later on in life.
Her brother, Stephen Cervantes had a job at a local library and she became familiar with Shakespeare, Keats, Shelly and Byron who would have the most influence on her self-conception as a poet. By the age of fifteen she had compiled her first collection of poetry. In 1974 she traveled with her brother to Mexico City, Mexico, who played with the Theater of the People of San Jose at the Quinto Festival de los Teatros Chicanos. At the last moment, Cervantes was asked to participate by reading some of her poetry. She chose to read a portion of "Refugee Ship," a poem that enacts the major dilemma of being Chicanx; feeling adrift between two cultures. This reading received much attention and appeared in a Mexican newspaper, as well as other journals and reviews. The poem was later included in her award-winning debut, Emlumada (1981).
Cervantes considers herself "a Chicana writer, a feminist writer, a political writer" (Cervantes). Her collections of poetry include Emplumada, From the Cables of Genocide, Drive: The First Quartet and Ciento: 100 100-Word Love Poems, and Sueño: New Poems, are held in high esteem and have attracted numerous nominations and awards.
In an interview conducted by Sonia V. Gonzalez, the poet states that through writing and publishing, “I was trying to give back that gift that had saved me when I discovered, again, African-American women’s poetry. I was having this vision of some little Chicana in San Antonio [Texas] going, scanning the shelves, like I used to do, scanning the shelves for women’s names, or Spanish surnames, hoping she’ll pull it out, relate to it. So it was intentionally accessible poetry, intended to bridge that gap, that literacy gap.” Cervantes was actively involved in the publication of numerous Chicana/o writers from the 1970's on when she produced her own Chicana/o literary journal,MANGO "which was the first to publish Sandra Cisneros, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Alberto Rios, Ray Gonzalez, Ronnie Burk, and Orlando Ramírez [co-editor]. Cervantes and MANGO also championed the early work of writers Gary Soto, José Montoya, José Montalvo, José Antonio Burciaga, and her personal favorite, Luís Omar Salinas"
Cervantes regularly gives poetry readings, workshops and guest lectures across the US. She was part of the Librotraficante Movement. The 2012 Librotraficante Caravan to Tucson was intended to smuggle books back into the hands of students, after they were boxed up and carted out of class rooms during class time, in order to comply with Arizona House Bill 2281. Cervantes delivered a moving speech to the Movement's supporters outside of the Alamo in March 2012.
The poet was one of seven featured writers to give a reading at the American Literature Association Conference held in San Francisco in May 2012. Ciento: 100 100 Word Love Poems was nominated for a Northern California Book Award in 2012 under the poetry category.
Her fifth collection, Sueño, published in 2013 was shortlisted for the Latin American Book Award in poetry in 2014. A European launch of the collection was hosted by University College Cork, Ireland in June 2014 as part of a symposium on Pathways, Explorations, Approaches in Mexican and Mexican American Studies.
Education
Abraham Lincoln High School (San Jose): School year, 1972
San Jose Community College: Associate Arts (high honors), School year, 1976
San Jose State University: BA Creative Arts (high honors), School year, 1984
UC Santa Cruz: PhD History of Consciousness (all but dissertation), 1984-88
Life and career
Instructor: UC Santa Cruz, August 1985 - May 1986
Associate Professor of English: University of Colorado at Boulder, August 1988 - August 2007
Visiting Scholar: University of Houston, 1994 - 1995
Ethnic Studies Lecturer: San Francisco State University, 2006 - 2007
Independent Scholar: Poet, Philosopher, San Francisco Bay Area, 2007–Present
UC Regents Lecturer: UC Berkeley (English Department) August 2011 – 2012
Cervantes has presented over 500 poetry readings, lectures and performances (Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Vassar, Mt. Holyoke, Princeton, Brown, Cornell.
Published works
Sueño: New Poems SA, TX: Wings Press, 2013.
Ciento: 100 100-Word Love Poems SA, TX: Wings Press, 2011; Wings Press
DRIVE: The First Quartet. SA, TX: Wings Press, 2006.
From the Cables of Genocide: Poems on Love and Hunger (Arte Público Press, 1991)
Emplumada (1981; American Book Award).
Red Dirt (co-editor), a cross-cultural poetry journal
Mango (founder), a literary review
Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry (eds. Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Jennifer Gillan, 1994)
No More Masks! An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Women Poets (ed. Florence Howe, 1993)
After Aztlan: Latino Poets of the Nineties (ed. Ray González, 1992)
.
Awards
Paterson Prize For Poetry
Battrick Award For Poetry
Latino Book Award
Latin American Book Award (Second Place)
Denver Book Award (Finalist)
Pushcart Prize (x2)
California Arts Council Grant for Poetry (x2)
Hudson D. Walker Fellowship Award at The Fine Arts Work Center
Colorado Poet Laureate (Finalist)
Vassar Visiting Writers Award
Mexican-American Studies Center Visiting Scholar Award
The National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Scholar Award
San Jose State University Outstanding Alumnus
San Jose Community College Outstanding Alumnus
The White House Third Millennium Evening with Poets Laureate Attendee (invited by President and Hillary Clinton as one of the best 100 poets in The United States)
Library of Congress Reading (x2)
American Book Award (1982)
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Grants for Poetry (1979 and 1989)
Lila-Wallace Reader’s Digest Foundation Writer’s Award (1995)*
KAN
Kin 204: Yellow Solar Seed
I pulse in order to target
Realizing awareness
I seal the input of flowering
With the solar tone of intention
I am guided by the power of universal fire.
Remember that life is wearing off, and a smaller part of it is left each day.*
*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2017-2018.
The Sacred Tzolk'in
Sahasrara Chakra (Dali Plasma)
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