| Diana Delgado | Diana Delgado | <div class="ExternalClass05FE1E1D7D23429A85419487D7186BF4"><h2><a href="https://phoenix.overdrive.com/phoenix-phoenixpl/content/media/4817077" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US"><span data-ccp-charstyle="Hyperlink">Tracing the Horse</span></span> </a><span data-ccp-parastyle="heading 4">by Diana Delgado</span> <br></h2><div><p><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US"><br></span></p><p><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US">Diana Marie Delgado, Literary Director of the University of Arizona Poetry Center, has more than twenty years of experience working in not-for-profits that advance social justice and the arts. She has worked at a range of organizations, including The Clinton Foundation, Coalition for Hispanic Family Services, and now the University of Arizona Poetry Center. A published poet, her first collection, <em>Tracing the Horse</em>, was a New York Times Noteworthy Pick and follows the coming-of-age of a young Mexican-American woman trying to make sense of who she is amidst a family and community weighted by violence and addiction. Her chapbook, </span><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US"><em>Late-Night Talks with Men I Think I Trust</em></span><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US">, was the 2018 Center for Book Arts winner and she has published poetry in </span><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US"><em>Ploughshares</em>, <em>Ninth Letter</em>, <em>New York Times Magazine</em>, <em>Colorado Review</em></span><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US"> and </span><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US"><em>Tin House</em></span><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US">. Her literary interests are rooted in her experiences growing up Chicana in the San Gabriel Valley of Southern California. She has extensive experience working both in and with communities of color, after spending more than a decade working and writing in New York City. </span><span data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":259}"> </span><br><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US"></span></p></div><div><p><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US">Delgado, the first in her family to graduate high school and attend college, transferred from community college to UC Riverside, where she received her bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing, with an emphasis in Poetry. She possesses a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University and her selected honors and awards include grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Hedgbrook, and Breadloaf. She is a CORO leadership fellow and member of the Iyengar Foundation. A playwright as well, Delgado had directed plays at both INTAR and La MaMa. She is a member of the CantoMundo and Macondo writing communities.</span><span data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":259}"> </span></p></div><div><h3><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US">What prompted you to write this book? </span><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US"> </span> </h3><p><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US">I didn't plan to write about my family. My process is to generate free-writes and then cull what I find interesting, or has a tail. And what kept coming up was my family. In some way the book summoned me.</span><span data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":259}"> </span></p></div><div><h3><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US">What attracted you to this genre: romance, mystery, non-fiction, etc.?</span><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US"> </span> </h3><p><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US">All this began with a poem that I read from Lorna Dee Cervantes, "The Poet is Served Her Papers." I read that poem and that poem was mirror for me and my feelings. I just felt an instinctual pull to move in that direction. To be a poet, whatever that means. </span><span data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":259}"> </span></p></div><div><h3><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US">Are any of the characters in your book based on real people and if so, who?</span><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US"> </span> </h3><p><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US">The book is my life story. I didn't know when I began writing poetry that's what I was attempting to do. The cover of the book is a picture of my parents and me at the plaza in downtown Los Angeles after I was baptized. The book is comprised of my family and me navigating a great deal of trauma in a Mexican-American / Chicano community in Southern California. So yes, real people, real emotions, real challenges.</span><span data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":259}"> </span></p></div><div><h3><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US">What type of research did you do to write your book?</span><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US"> </span> </h3><p><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US">No formal research. But I did listen a lot--and that's a form of research. And I relied a lot on memory, which is an archive. I am very interested in idiom and the psychology of the people I write about, including myself. I did read a lot of Freud and Lacan; the idea of subtext and the subconscious is part of how I craft poetry. </span><span data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":259}"> </span></p></div><div><h3><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US">What book are you currently reading?</span> </h3><p><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US">I'm currently reading </span><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US"><em>White Tears / Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color</em></span><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US">. It's been an important book for me in that it has helped me understand the microagressions that occur in the workplace and the world; why they are happening, and what this behavior is rooted in. As a woman of color you are often asked to edit yourself for the sake of others. This book is teaching me not to.</span><span data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":259}"> </span></p></div><div><h3><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US">Are you writing anything now? If so, when will it come out?</span><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US"> </span> </h3><p><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US">I'm working on a collection of inter-related short-stories that might be a novel and a prose poem collection rooted in the Aztec Conquest. Not sure when I'll be able to share these new projects, but I'm excited to be with these two projects for as long as they need. </span><span data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":259}"> </span></p></div><div><h3><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US">If you weren't a writer, what would you do?</span> </h3><p><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US">I would be a landscape designer. That's what I had begun to study at Mt. San Antonio College before poetry hijacked my life. To me this means that I'd be a visual artist.</span><span data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":259}"> </span></p></div><div><h3><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US">Do you use your local library? If so, which library is it and what do you do there?</span> </h3><p><span data-contrast="none" lang="EN-US">I'm all about the Pima County Library System, and the best library in the world--the UA Poetry Center Library in Tucson, Arizona!</span> <br></p></div></div> |
