What I'm Grateful For As the New Year Gets Underway

First of all, I'm grateful for the man I share my life with, my husband Ben. A scholar, an editor, a publisher, all to the highest degree. Also, my best friend and my strongest supporter. And funny and fun. Who could ask for more?

Of course, the fact that he looks 20-30 years younger than he really is has never made me happy, especially when folks ask if he's my son, but I've come to terms with it over the years. I know that skinny neck's going to wrinkle like a turkey's one of these days, and I'll get the last laugh then.


Next are my children. This is my youngest son, who's brilliant and snarky and sweet. I'm just as grateful for my oldest son, who's handsome and smart and generous, and my daughter, who's bright and funny and creative, but their photos are on the dead desktop, not this laptop. (The hard drive survived so I haven't lost them, but I can't access them right now.)



Next comes our Plott hound, Dyson, rescued just before the ax dropped. He's turning out to be a wonderful companion.

But I'm also grateful for the many years we enjoyed the company of our wonderful Shar-pei/husky mix, Mina. She was loyal and loving and brave and protective and the sweetest dog I've ever had, and we'll never forget her.















I'm grateful this year for having the chance to meet and get to know Sandra Cisneros. She came to Kansas City as the highlight of our most successful Latino Writers Collective reading series ever. And then later in the year, I had the chance to spend more time with her at...



Macondo! Another thing I'm so grateful for in my life in 2009. This writers workshop and writing community founded by Sandra is an incredible mix of great talent, huge fun, focused intention, and always compassion, if not outright love. Becoming a member this year was a true privilege. This final shot of Macondo 2009 missed some people, unfortunately, but all these people are incredible, and I'm truly grateful to have gotten to know each of them.


This photo is of my Casa-Hearth-Diaspora writing workshop at Macondo. Led superbly by Ruth Behar and Marjorie Agosín, these multi-talented people worked on each other's manuscripts with such care and caring that it was a great blessing to be in their company. They embodied the Macondo spirit, and they are each precious to me.







(Note: This list is not really in any order because I haven't mastered moving and placing photos in Blogger. In fact, today I can hardly upload them!) This photo is of the Konza Prairie around Manhattan, Kansas.
Last year, I had the opportunity to go back to my old high school in Manhattan (the "Little Apple"), and reconnect with long-lost classmates. I'm grateful for that opportunity and their continuing presence in my life.



Always, always I'm grateful for my Latino Writers Collective familia. Here are a few of us in Chicago at our reading at LatteOnLincoln. Front and center is another person I'm grateful for, Carlos Cumpián, terrific editor, poet, and friend to the Collective and to me.

Of course, another thing I'm thankful for is the publication of my book, Heart's Migration, this past year--and for the very positive receptions it received. Much appreciation to Tia Chucha Press for publishing it and giving me such a beautiful book.

Another thing I am grateful for is receiving the Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award from the Macondo Foundation. This award is "for exhibiting exceptional talent, a profound commitment to their chosen form of expression, and dedication to the work of nurturing the creativity of others." That kind of recognition seldom comes around, and when it does, it means so much.

One of the other things I'm thankful for is the Midwest Voices and Visions Award from the Alliance of Artists Communities and the Joyce Foundation. I will start my month at Ragdale in a few weeks, and my creative heart, which has been buried lately under nonprofit and grant business and minus-degree hills of snow, is hungry for that dedicated time to do my own work and connect again with the deep well of intuitive inspiration at my core.

So goodbye to 2009. You were very good to me. I hope 2010 will be even better.

What are you grateful for as the new year gets underway?

Catching Up

Boy, have I been a neglectful blogger! I've been in and out of town and overwhelmed with work and stuff when here. So I need to catch up.

I was shocked, surprised, and thrilled to receive the 2009 Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award from the Macondo Foundation for excellence in writing and nurturing the creativity of others. I will be using the money on a spiritual retreat that I hope will help me finish the book of poetry I'm working on. This award meant that I also was accepted to the Macondo Workshop, and I am so looking forward to that at the end of July! Got my plane tickets and everything. Even joined Facebook so I could get updates, etc. My son was happy that someone had finally dragged me into the 21st century.

Another lovely surprise occurred when I was contacted by my best friend from high school, Jerri Kundiger Garretson. We hadn't heard from each other in over 40 years, but when I was in the final two years of high school, I spent as much or more time at Jerri's house as at my own and her mother was an early role model for me. Our high school class is having a reunion, and by a series of oddities, I'm back in contact and will be attending for the first time. After group emails went out, Jerri emailed me and we spent a lot of one night staying up late, catching each other up on what had gone on in our lives. It turns out she is a writer also and has her own small press, too. And as a final irony, my oldest son Niles just accepted a job near where she lives in Florida. So the chance that we'll get to meet again (even though she can't come to this reunion) is good.

My book launch for Heart's Migration was on May 29 at The Writers Place. Jason Biggers, one of my hermanos from the Latino Writers Collective, played lovely music for it. About 90 people showed up to make a wonderfully receptive audience, and we shoved good energy back and forth to each other, building it all night. And they bought books! Sold 40 that night. It was a terrific evening.

That same day, we had just found out that our first anthology, Primera Pagina: Poetry From the Latino Heartland, had taken 2nd place in the International Latino Book Awards, right after Juan Felipe Herrera's National Book Award-winning title. So Ben brought champagne to toast the Latino Writers Collective's success, as well as my book.

My most recent trip out of town was to Iowa City for the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses Midwest Book Fair at the University of Iowa. This meant we got to spend time with Joseph, my youngest son (with whom we stayed). The Book Fair was wonderful. Sold books, made connections with lots of people and organizations, even found a new LWC member. If they have it there again next year, we'll definitely go. We had dinner with Stephanie, one of Joseph's friends (with whom he's going to London later this summer), and we made our usual trip to Kalona, a small town near Iowa City that's predominantly Amish and Mennonite. We're addicted to the cinnamon rolls of the Kalona Bakery, and we bought handmade presents at a wonderful crafts store.

I came back to tons of emails, as usual, even though I try to use an out-of-office message when I can't check email daily. While wading through the junk and demands and messages I really wanted, I found a message from the permissions person for The Writers Almanac, saying Garrison Keillor wanted to read two of my poems on the show--"The Sun Grows in Your Smile," June 23, and "Mediation on the Word NEED," June 27. I was almost as speechless for a minute as when I got the phone call from Olivia Doerges, the sweet-voiced director of the Macondo Foundation, to tell me about the Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award. I need to find a better response to recognition than just going dumb!

I'm reading briefly from Heart's Migration this Friday at the Lenexa City Hall for Latino Arts Bravissimo! (where my books and the Collective's books have been on display) at 7:30 pm. Then, on Thursday, June 25, I will be reading at The Raven Bookstore in Lawrence for the Big Tent Reading Series with Peter Wright at 7:00 pm. On July 1, I will be reading at the Lawrence Arts Center in Lawrence for the launch of Imagination and Place: An Anthology and the turnover of Kansas poet laureates (from Denise Low-Weso to Carryn-Miriam Goldberg). Come and join me at any or all of these times and places! Should be a lot of fun.

I'm knitting a special shawl on commission, untangling some incredible grant convolutions, writing a new grant, researching an essay for a book on High Plains poets, writing (or should be) several reviews, writing analyses of a novel and two short stories for clients, trying to dig my house out from under its load of chaos, working on book promotion, and--when I can steal a moment--reading the correspondence between Denise Levertov and Robert Duncan (a wonderful Mother's Day gift from my youngest).

My peonies and irises are gone. The roses are almost spent. Missouri primrose, elder, dahlias, zinnias, lilies, daylilies, sage, and petunias are blooming away. I saw a woodpecker and a flicker the other day among our usual flocks of birds. Saw lots of lovely herons on the drive from Iowa. And thus spring moves into summer here in Kansas City.