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  • The Regions of Poetry
  • Elizabeth Coonrod Martínez

We are pleased to present this special theme for Diálogo 17:2, created by two academic experts in Latin American and Latino/a poetics (who are also poetic creative writers), Drs. Juana Iris “Juanita” Goergen and Norma Elia Cantú. Their Call for original creative contributions and studies on 21st century poetry elicited a rich array of work, more than could have filled one issue, from which they carefully selected a beautiful arrangement for our reading, meditation, and understanding. As has become customary for Diálogo, about half our submissions are in English, half in Spanish. The issue before you provides much to learn about art and angst, life lived in diverse pockets of the American hemisphere, and the new directions and movements of poetry in the 21st century.

The 37 poets included in this special issue take us on a rich journey. From well-known poets to newer voices, they represent nearly every country and region of this hemisphere. The section opens with eminent Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal’s verses on language and life, Puerto Rican Javier Ávila’s verses on family, Argentinian Hugo Mujica’s celestial contemplations, and Alex Fleites’ Caribbean reflections. Zulema Moret takes us to Argentina, Eduardo Chirinos and Santiago Weksler to Perú, and Xánath Caraza to Mexico. We make the circuit again, to Perú with Ana Varela Tafur, to lyrical Guatemala with Carlos López, and back to Mexico with Emmanuel Ayala, Jeannette L. Clariond, and Gerardo Cárdenas. We head to Colombia with Juan Felipe Robledo, Chile with Mario Meléndez, Bolivia with Miguel Marzana, Costa Rica with Osvaldo Sauma, and return to Mexico with Juan Antonio González and Olivia Maciel. Through these verses we travel on buses, by foot, dancing, we stop and survey scenes, we soar to greater dimensions, and pause at cantinas, noises, sunsets and sunrises, short and long roads, good and bad memories. We are again in Perú with Paolo de Lima, move to the Indigenous world with Vickie Vértiz, Carmen Tafolla, Claudia Aburto Guzmán and others, to Chicana consciousness with Liliana Valenzuela, Rosemary Catacalcos, Emmy Pérez, Angelina Sáenz, Araceli Esparza, and to contemplations of the border and borders with Andrés Rodríguez and ire’ne lara silva. We arrive in the Dominican Republic with Rebeca Castellanos, Puerto Rico with Guillermo Rebollo-Gil, South America with Florencia Milito, Mexico with Claire Joysmith and Alejandra Amezcua, and cherish the unique meditations of Sylvia Riojas Vaughn and Yaccaira Salvatierra.

Poetry is an opportunity to discover other worlds while learning more about ourselves, and discerning new meanings in life. Poets reach out in a language of the heart and soul. We wish you buen viaje on your journey through these pages.

First, please begin this issue with the powerful introductions, in English and Spanish, by our Guest Thematic Editors, whose insights will delight and guide us to both the creative work and the intellectually stimulating articles of new research.

The authors of these articles evaluate the work of poets and poetry movements in Puerto Rico, Perú, Argentina and Chile, the South Texas borderlands, the Dominican Republic, U.S. and Chicana experiences. Subjects include Indigenous experience, diaspora, childbirth, domestic violence—poetic contexts at times subtle, at times overt, with emphasis on community voices and groups. In the recent era when critics finally begin to assess new creative works by Indigenous peoples, little attention has yet been devoted to women Indigenous poets. Two articles here identify and study a number of women poets, from Mapuche in the Southern Cone with Astrid Fugellie and Diana Bellessi’s work in Zulema Moret’s article, to poets in contemporary Mexico—Irma Pineda (Isthmus Zapotec), Enriqueta Lunez (Tzotzil), Mikeas Sánchez (Zoque) and Celerina Patricia Sánchez Santiago (Mixtec)—in Wendy Call’s article. Broader readership, new translations, and great publishing opportunities have made Indigenous-language poetry more accessible. New publishing outlets have also propelled a new movement of “Chicana/o” poetry along the U.S. Borderlands, as discussed by Christopher Carmona.

Roberta Hurtado’s article engages testimonio to show the socio-sexual racialization to which Latina women are exposed, through analysis...

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