I think many of us dream of writing poetry when we are young. We try our hand at it a couple of times, amass pages in a notebook, and eventually find the courage to print out a few fledgling poems. Our heads bowed, we dare to show those poems to someone we admire, a teacher or a published writer. And when that person says our poems are awful, it’s a shot in the heart. Those who are strong will ignore the wound and keep on writing. Those plagued with self-doubt will stop writing and tell themselves they are unworthy of being called a poet.

When told my poems weren’t good enough, I gave up. Years later, when I took up poetry again, I wrote an autobiographical poem about being an “Obedient Student.” I hope it will serve as a mantra to others not to follow in my path. Read more

I was a student both of Professor Juan Roura-Parella and his wife, the lovely Teresa. Professor Roura taught me about aesthetics and philosophy, Goya’s black paintings, the poetry of Antonio Machado, and what it means to be a political exile. The lovely Teresa taught me classical Spanish guitar, to move gracefully, and how to look elegant in high heels.

I was born in Cuba and grew up speaking Spanish with my family in New York. When I went to Wesleyan University in 1974, I was not yet eighteen. I’d never gone to camp or lived on my own. My mother was in tears. But my father was irate that I was going to college against his will; he believed a girl should wait at home until a man came to marry her. After a tense, scary, and silent three-hour drive from our rental apartment in Queens to the leafy campus in Middletown, Connecticut, I couldn’t wait for Mami and Papi and my younger brother, Mori, to drop me off at the dorm. I was eager to start living an independent life in the grand feminist style I’d been hearing about in the news, maybe not burn my bra, but stand tall, brave, and sure of myself, and never have to depend on a man to take care of me. Read more