TRANSCRIPT 🔗
WEBVTT
00:00:01.040 --> 00:00:03.439
Welcome to the HeartPath Podcast.
00:00:03.600 --> 00:00:05.919
I'm your host, Yvonne Millis.
00:00:06.160 --> 00:00:13.519
The HeartPath Podcast spotlights authors, change makers, nature lovers, and creators of all kinds.
00:00:13.759 --> 00:00:20.480
Each of our podcasts aims to share interviews and stories of beauty, resilience, and inspiration for all.
00:00:47.439 --> 00:00:59.679
Not my close friends, not acquaintances, not my co-workers, not the friendly strangers in public spaces who wave at me expecting small talk.
00:01:00.640 --> 00:01:02.719
I don't want to tell anyone.
00:01:03.200 --> 00:01:06.319
I wish I could keep it all to myself.
00:01:06.959 --> 00:01:08.959
Keep her to myself.
00:01:09.439 --> 00:01:24.000
Even that day I saw her cry brokenheartedly for her wayward sons, including me, who at 15 drove a stolen car towards a dark future no one else saw but me.
00:01:25.200 --> 00:01:39.519
But back then, how could I have known that my writing would become so embedded in my waking hours that it would be hard to differentiate between the art I am making and the life I am living?
00:01:40.480 --> 00:01:45.760
My mother died on Christmas Day, and we buried her on New Year's Eve.
00:01:46.480 --> 00:01:57.280
In the country where she was born, throughout the week, death is celebrated with heavy drinking by the men who come to tend the late night fires.
00:01:58.159 --> 00:02:01.200
There wasn't much drinking at my mother's wake.
00:02:01.599 --> 00:02:03.359
Not even at the burial.
00:02:03.760 --> 00:02:07.280
She hated it when her son strank themselves stupid.
00:02:07.680 --> 00:02:23.280
Late at night, my brothers who still love guns headed out to an open field where the stars could be made out with a naked eye and fired their grief into the ground.
00:02:23.680 --> 00:02:24.080
Wow.
00:02:24.319 --> 00:02:27.599
Holy moly, thank you so much for sharing this.
00:02:27.919 --> 00:02:29.039
This is brand new.
00:02:29.199 --> 00:02:39.759
I'm working on a hybrid collection of poetry, memoir, visual poetry, and different kinds of media.
00:02:39.840 --> 00:02:48.479
And I'm also including photography and possibly some transcribe to music that I've been writing.
00:02:48.639 --> 00:02:51.120
So I'm having a lot of fun with it.
00:02:51.360 --> 00:03:03.520
And this is a poem that I decided to read to you because reading your work for me is a way for me to go back and take it all in, to go back and revise.
00:03:03.599 --> 00:03:07.680
So I'm kind of using your program to revise my poems.
00:03:09.280 --> 00:03:10.240
Perfect.
00:03:10.560 --> 00:03:12.080
Ah, wonderful.
00:03:12.400 --> 00:03:28.159
And I totally understood the lines where you were talking about how writing is life and how it's so hard to get away from who we are as humans in writing.
00:03:28.479 --> 00:03:30.719
So thank you for sharing that.
00:03:31.039 --> 00:03:38.719
I would love to talk a little bit about visual poetry and when you started visual poetry.
00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:43.520
Since I was a little boy in school, I would always be drawing, sketching.
00:03:44.080 --> 00:03:55.840
My teachers, I don't know if they hated me, or some of them just decided to accept the way I was because every time they would give us an assignment to write on a test or whatever, I would always doodle.
00:03:55.919 --> 00:03:56.960
I would always be drawing.
00:03:57.120 --> 00:03:59.759
I would always be doing something on the paper.
00:03:59.919 --> 00:04:14.560
And I don't know if I was bored or I just wanted to draw, or I was trying to be clever, or I don't know, but I've always been drawing, sketching, and I'm not a great illustrator, to be honest with you, but I love painting.
00:04:14.639 --> 00:04:17.120
I love art, visual art.
00:04:17.759 --> 00:04:21.439
And the only formal class that I have is a high school class.
00:04:21.759 --> 00:04:24.079
However, I've always painted.
00:04:24.160 --> 00:04:28.879
And as a teenager, I realized that art material is very expensive.
00:04:29.040 --> 00:04:36.800
So I would paint on drywall that my father would bring back home from work, which is, you know, it breaks easily.
00:04:36.959 --> 00:04:39.839
But I would still paint on it and practice, right?
00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:41.519
For me, it was all about practicing.
00:04:41.680 --> 00:04:49.040
And I was doing a lot of sacred art, a lot of bloody Christ and Sexy Marys and stuff like that.
00:04:49.279 --> 00:04:50.639
And my friends loved them.
00:04:50.720 --> 00:05:05.360
And now that I think back, having my friends see the work that I was doing was probably the best thing that came out of that because my friends began to see me as an artist.
00:05:05.600 --> 00:05:10.720
In 2018, I committed myself to write every day.
00:05:10.800 --> 00:05:12.319
I would always be making excuses.
00:05:12.480 --> 00:05:18.800
I don't have time to write, you know, everybody has a second book except me, blah, blah, blah.
00:05:19.040 --> 00:05:33.360
And so I bought a bunch of notebooks, and of course, I would write, but I would also be sketching and doodling, and then I started uploading them, posting them on social media, and then I post something every day since 2018.
00:05:33.519 --> 00:05:33.839
Yeah.
00:05:34.079 --> 00:05:41.040
So I have um containers full of artwork, which you know, they're a lot easier to store than canvases.
00:05:41.199 --> 00:05:50.560
Now I paint on canvas also, and I paint something that I love, and I'm going through this process of painting over paintings, right?
00:05:51.120 --> 00:05:54.000
I don't have the room to store them.
00:05:54.800 --> 00:05:57.279
And um, I paint every day, basically.
00:05:57.519 --> 00:06:03.759
Since the Book of Wounded Sparrows came out, I haven't been writing until recently, and that's why I read that poem.
00:06:03.839 --> 00:06:06.480
It's more like a prose poem, it's almost like an essay.
00:06:06.639 --> 00:06:17.279
I
Load full transcript
think right now I'm between writing poetry and writing memoir, you know, I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but I think eventually I'll know what I'm doing.
00:06:17.519 --> 00:06:22.240
So I've always been interested in visual poetry and combining text and image.
00:06:22.399 --> 00:06:24.000
And I love looking at things.
00:06:24.240 --> 00:06:33.360
I love not necessarily understanding what I'm looking at, but there's something that I'm looking at that gives me pleasure in some way.
00:06:33.920 --> 00:06:44.000
And for me, you have a visual poem that's abstract or more evocative than concrete.
00:06:44.160 --> 00:06:48.319
I love that, you know, combination of color and text.
00:06:48.879 --> 00:06:57.199
And so once I started drawing and writing in my notebook, I I realized that hey, uh I like this.
00:06:57.360 --> 00:07:03.439
I want this to be visual poetry, I want this to be part of my creative process.
00:07:04.240 --> 00:07:13.199
And for my creative process to be the artifacts that my audience uh looks at.
00:07:13.920 --> 00:07:26.879
I want my artistic process to be the art itself and not wait until I do a work of quote-unquote genius to show it off to the world.
00:07:26.959 --> 00:07:29.040
I want the world to see my process.
00:07:29.360 --> 00:07:33.360
If along the way I do something great that people like, well, great.
00:07:33.519 --> 00:07:36.800
If not, screw it, you keep exploring.
00:07:37.120 --> 00:07:40.000
That's my philosophy in writing and in art.
00:07:40.160 --> 00:07:45.680
And so since 2018, I've been posting frontextos, I don't want to call them visual poems.
00:07:45.839 --> 00:07:49.519
So I decided to combine two words, frontera and textil.
00:07:49.680 --> 00:07:57.120
Frontera means border, and texto means text, frontexto, which is for me, it's a way to honor where I come from.
00:07:57.199 --> 00:08:00.480
You know, I come from the Texas borderland, South Texas.
00:08:01.120 --> 00:08:13.439
And now, in the same way, 35 years ago or more, that I got validated by my friends for painting crap on drywalls.
00:08:14.319 --> 00:08:23.279
Now, one of the happiest moments was when journals started calling my work from textos when they got published.
00:08:23.519 --> 00:08:25.600
So it's like, wow, this is cool.
00:08:25.839 --> 00:08:28.560
So that's that's my history with visual art.
00:08:28.639 --> 00:08:31.040
I've always loved it, and I'm always gonna paint.
00:08:31.120 --> 00:08:43.200
As a matter of fact, for me, painting is like writing, and writing is like painting because I'm a visual poet in the sense that even in text, I write with images, I write with metaphor.
00:08:43.840 --> 00:08:44.320
Wow.
00:08:44.559 --> 00:08:47.039
Were there any other artists in your family?
00:08:47.120 --> 00:08:51.200
Or are you the one that just was like, I'm painting, I'm doing this?
00:08:51.679 --> 00:09:05.440
Well, that's kind of interesting because I was just writing uh another little prose piece about this,
because as a writer, as someone who makes art or thinks artistically, I've always wondered where she comes from, you know.
00:09:05.600 --> 00:09:07.200
Am I the only dude that does this?
00:09:07.360 --> 00:09:12.480
But no, my mom used to write poetry, even though she kept it to herself.
00:09:12.720 --> 00:09:16.960
Unfortunately, she told us about it when we were teenagers and we made fun of her.
00:09:17.200 --> 00:09:17.679
Uh-uh.
00:09:18.559 --> 00:09:33.759
My mom used to write little verses in Spanish, and in her later years, she also sang, and she became a preacher at her church and would give sermons or lectures about the Bible, and she would sing.
00:09:34.639 --> 00:09:45.840
And it's interesting because she's finding this out that she has that need and that desire to express herself in front of the public artistically in her later years.
00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:54.480
Maybe she always had it, but the life that she was leading did not accommodate her desires.
00:09:54.720 --> 00:09:55.519
It was a hard life.
00:09:55.679 --> 00:09:59.200
She comes from Mexico, from the ranchos, from the ranches, raising kids.
00:09:59.360 --> 00:10:01.039
You don't think about art, right?
00:10:01.200 --> 00:10:01.360
Yeah.
00:10:01.600 --> 00:10:06.559
Well, you might think about it, but you don't have the luxury to do it, the time or whatever.
00:10:06.879 --> 00:10:12.240
So my mom has that, and then one of my uncles in Mexico, he lives in Monterrey, he's a songwriter.
00:10:12.399 --> 00:10:14.000
He writes songs for her bands.
00:10:15.600 --> 00:10:22.320
And I think the greatest artist in my family was my father.
00:10:23.600 --> 00:10:24.879
He was a farmer.
00:10:25.919 --> 00:10:31.840
He farmed and worked the land like an artist, like a freaking artist.
00:10:32.639 --> 00:10:43.519
So I think my way of making art obviously is very different from what he did.
00:10:44.639 --> 00:10:57.519
But you learn from someone like that how to take care of something, how to tend it, how to watch it grow, how to harvest it, how to keep trying when the rains don't come.
00:10:57.919 --> 00:10:59.279
He was the artist, you know.
00:10:59.440 --> 00:11:03.759
He was a brilliant man, even though he had a second, third grade education.
00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:07.840
So it's like, wow, you know, I can see why I desire this.
00:11:08.080 --> 00:11:13.039
He would work with wood, he would make all kinds of furniture.
00:11:13.200 --> 00:11:16.240
If you don't call that art, I don't know what the hell you call art, you know.
00:11:16.879 --> 00:11:29.039
So yeah, I come from a family that has always appreciated education, reading, the arts, to whatever extent they were understood by them.
00:11:29.200 --> 00:11:30.960
They always appreciated that.
00:11:31.120 --> 00:11:52.159
And that's why I'm here because they appreciated this life so much that they gave me the opportunity, the time, the space to be myself, to do crazy shit like being in a rock band in the 90s and waking them up at 2 in the morning, playing guitar and with a band.
00:11:52.879 --> 00:11:57.200
Uh, gave me the time to stay home and read.
00:11:57.360 --> 00:11:59.519
I was supposed to go dig bitches for plumbers.
00:11:59.919 --> 00:12:05.200
So I think that's also part of the artist's life that often we don't talk about.
00:12:05.360 --> 00:12:06.960
You're not made from one day to the next.
00:12:07.120 --> 00:12:20.639
In my case, there's a lot of people that have allowed me to be here, maybe not because they were necessarily making quote unquote art as I'm trying to make, but because they appreciate it.
00:12:20.879 --> 00:12:23.440
And I think there's something good to say about that.
00:12:23.679 --> 00:12:27.600
When you do something like this, you kind of have to have guts, right?
00:12:27.840 --> 00:12:37.679
To just throw yourself out there and say, this is what I'm gonna do, and I don't know what I'm doing, but hopefully I find what I'm doing or something of what I'm doing in the process.
00:12:38.320 --> 00:12:45.759
And when my first book came out in 2014, I was like, okay, dude, I already went through the system.
00:12:45.840 --> 00:12:49.600
I, you know, I got a PhD in creative writing and literature, I already did all this crap.
00:12:49.679 --> 00:12:50.480
I'm still not happy.
00:12:50.559 --> 00:12:52.159
I want to do my thing.
00:12:52.879 --> 00:12:54.159
And I did, right?
00:12:54.240 --> 00:12:55.039
I'm like, you know what?
00:12:55.600 --> 00:12:56.559
Screw all that.
00:12:56.799 --> 00:12:58.159
Let me do this, right?
00:12:58.399 --> 00:13:03.519
Let me do what I feel is poetic, that I feel feels something in me.
00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:14.639
Uh this excitement, you know, like when you see something, you get excited, even though it might not be complete, even though it might not be perfect.
00:13:14.799 --> 00:13:23.759
It's kind of like when I see abstract works, when I'm like, whoa, you know, like abstract work makes me emotional.
00:13:23.919 --> 00:13:28.159
Not all of it, but if I see something, I want to do something like that, you know.
00:13:28.320 --> 00:13:39.039
And honestly, I was just kind of bored with the limitations of what I thought I could do with poetry and words and images, and so you start doing stuff, you know, you start combining stuff.
00:13:39.200 --> 00:13:43.440
For me, obviously, I'm realizing that writing is not enough, you know.
00:13:43.519 --> 00:13:53.919
I have to paint, and also I do a little bit of music, so I think all of them are kind of in dialogue and similar and also different ways.
00:13:54.240 --> 00:13:59.519
And I don't know, I mean, to me, it's all about process, it's all about exploration.
00:14:00.080 --> 00:14:02.399
And you start exploring.
00:14:03.039 --> 00:14:07.840
And I remember being kind of scared at the beginning.
00:14:07.919 --> 00:14:17.200
You know, people are gonna think it sucks, and people, but then I realized, well, no, I'm documenting my
process as a human being, you know, and that's been since 2018.
00:14:17.279 --> 00:14:33.039
And you go to my social media, you're gonna see from 2018 all the way here, you're gonna see an image and how it's growing, you know, and doing that kind of thing has been probably the smartest thing I've ever done in my life because doing that has opened so many doors for me.
00:14:33.200 --> 00:14:33.440
Wow.
00:14:33.679 --> 00:14:37.600
Exhibits, collaborations with other artists, residencies.
00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:42.559
Uh it's like, yeah, you know, just do what your heart feels like doing.
00:14:42.720 --> 00:14:43.759
You only live once.
00:14:43.840 --> 00:14:47.279
It's the one thing that I'm so glad I realized earlier in life.
00:14:47.440 --> 00:14:50.639
You gotta do what makes you happy, no matter what.
00:14:51.360 --> 00:14:56.320
Oh, I could maybe have more money, maybe have a swimming pool.
00:14:57.919 --> 00:14:59.759
But I'm happy, you know.
00:14:59.840 --> 00:15:00.559
I love where I work.
00:15:00.639 --> 00:15:08.559
I teach at Orlando University, and some people tell me, Man, you could probably teach at a better school and get paid more.
00:15:08.720 --> 00:15:19.519
And I'm like, Yeah, dude, but I'm happy waking up and driving to work and being in a space that welcomes me and I know what I'm doing.
00:15:20.399 --> 00:15:39.919
And and if I go somewhere else, sure, you know, it might be different and I might have a different experience, but I don't know what it means to be happy in that space because I'm happy in this space, you know what I'm saying?
00:15:40.080 --> 00:15:45.679
So I don't feel like I'm losing anything, I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything, you know.
00:15:46.000 --> 00:15:52.720
So I always tell my students, do what you love because life is long when you're freaking miserable, you know.
00:15:53.759 --> 00:15:59.840
Life is long when you're miserable, but when you're happy, life just passes you by like nothing.
00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:02.559
You're on the path, you're doing what you love.
00:16:02.879 --> 00:16:08.320
You have a lot of events coming up on the 22nd of April.
00:16:08.399 --> 00:16:19.039
You have a Moody Professorship lecture at University of Incarnate Word at 5 p.m.
00:16:19.519 --> 00:16:33.360
It's gonna be on visual poetry, the making of it, contemporary practitioners of visual poetry, and also hybrid text, not just visual poetry, but that poem that I read is part of this little project that I'm working on.
00:16:33.519 --> 00:16:37.279
It's like a little hybrid chat book for now, and that's gonna be part of my presentation.
00:16:37.440 --> 00:16:43.600
I'm gonna be showing the audience how I'm putting this thing together, right?
00:16:43.840 --> 00:16:46.159
I'm hoping that it will become my next book.
00:16:46.320 --> 00:16:48.080
But like I said, everything for me is processed.
00:16:48.159 --> 00:17:00.559
So I'm not waiting to finish the book to start talking about it because that's how I revise, that's how I go back and think about what I'm doing and what's working and what's not working.
00:17:01.440 --> 00:17:05.680
But yeah, it's gonna be about hybrid text and all aspects of visual poetry.
00:17:05.839 --> 00:17:20.960
So a faculty professor from the University of Incarnate Word comes to the lake, they do their lecture, and then I go to their university and I do my lecture, and then we both do it in our own respective universities.
00:17:21.920 --> 00:17:26.160
So it's a really cool scholarly collaboration between two universities.
00:17:26.400 --> 00:17:27.440
So yeah.
00:17:27.759 --> 00:17:36.000
And then you have another event happening June 24th through the 28th in Arizona.
00:17:36.160 --> 00:17:37.920
What's that event called?
00:17:38.480 --> 00:17:41.519
Uh, I'm gonna be a faculty for Cantomundo.
00:17:42.079 --> 00:17:52.160
Cantomundo is an organization that supports uh Latinx poets, you know, and it's uh been around uh for more than a decade.
00:17:52.240 --> 00:17:54.720
And I'm a Cantomundo fellow.
00:17:55.039 --> 00:17:58.400
I attended the conference three summers.
00:17:58.559 --> 00:18:01.920
And in this case, I'm returning as faculty, so it should be fun.
00:18:02.160 --> 00:18:05.440
Are you gonna teach visual poetry there or something else?
00:18:05.839 --> 00:18:06.640
I think I am.
00:18:06.799 --> 00:18:08.960
That's what I hear participants want.
00:18:09.279 --> 00:18:14.559
So I would probably be walking them through exercises, giving them more context.
00:18:14.799 --> 00:18:34.640
But I'm gonna try and guide it for us to reflect about what it means to tell your own story, but also the different ways you can tell your story, including lyric poetry, prose poetry, visual poetry, object poetry, uh, video poetics, different ways to experiment with your story.
00:18:34.720 --> 00:18:37.039
So that sounds great.
00:18:37.599 --> 00:18:51.759
Yes, and then you are going to be the keynote speaker at the Texas Association of Creative Writers on October 2nd.
00:18:52.720 --> 00:18:55.759
Is that open for anyone that wants to join?
00:18:55.920 --> 00:19:00.880
Or it's an association, so I think there's fees if you're from Texas.
00:19:01.119 --> 00:19:01.440
Okay.
00:19:01.839 --> 00:19:05.119
Uh so yeah, I think you have to be a member to attend.
00:19:05.680 --> 00:19:11.599
But from what I understand, they often have grad students come and present their papers.
00:19:11.759 --> 00:19:14.640
It's a conference, and I'm just gonna do the keynote.
00:19:14.799 --> 00:19:21.920
I have no idea what I'll be talking about, but I'll probably mix it with remarks on the literary life and reading poetry.
00:19:22.160 --> 00:19:22.960
Yes, yes.
00:19:24.079 --> 00:19:34.799
And then you have an event in Florence, South Carolina at the PD Festival at Francis Marion University.
00:19:35.039 --> 00:19:37.440
And when is that going to be?
00:19:38.160 --> 00:19:43.359
It's going to be November 5th and 6th.
00:19:43.599 --> 00:19:44.319
Woo-hoo.
00:19:44.880 --> 00:19:50.400
Yeah, it's might be my first time in South Carolina, so I'm excited to visit.
00:19:50.559 --> 00:19:52.160
I love to visit new places.
00:19:52.319 --> 00:19:57.359
So when I get an opportunity to go read somewhere outside of Texas, I jump on it.
00:19:57.599 --> 00:20:07.599
I love going to AWP for that reason because I can go to places I wouldn't normally go to and hang out with a bunch of writers, and that makes me very happy.
00:20:07.839 --> 00:20:12.319
I would love to hear one more poem if you'd be willing to share.
00:20:17.839 --> 00:20:20.880
And it goes like this movies.
00:20:22.480 --> 00:20:28.079
I've been watching movies in which older folk innocent have sex.
00:20:29.359 --> 00:20:33.839
Men and women in their late 60s or early 70s.
00:20:34.640 --> 00:20:41.359
Hard to tell the age on screen, since I know for sure I'm not there yet.
00:20:41.759 --> 00:20:44.079
But I will eventually.
00:20:56.079 --> 00:20:58.000
Wonder where she is.
00:20:58.720 --> 00:21:07.839
Wonder if she finally left the warehouse where we both worked, where we first kissed behind the stack of printing paper.
00:21:08.559 --> 00:21:16.720
Where after kissing we kept our eyes closed till we heard the boss calling out someone's name.
00:21:17.440 --> 00:21:28.160
Her sons must be close to the age she was when she pressed her body against mine in the back of her old station wagon.
00:21:29.039 --> 00:21:33.839
They were kids then, the oldest, not much younger than I was.
00:21:34.640 --> 00:21:38.960
How could I ever be a father, their father at their age?
00:21:39.440 --> 00:21:41.279
She never asked me to.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:04.160
Across her mind as she does with me now.
00:22:05.359 --> 00:22:12.000
And I watch a movie in which a man and a woman kiss and grope their aged bodies.
00:22:12.640 --> 00:22:17.119
And I see their wrinkly faces and their dry big veined hands.
00:22:17.839 --> 00:22:20.559
And it's like seeing the future.
00:22:21.119 --> 00:22:28.960
There I am, reaching hard again for what I've been practicing my whole life.
00:22:29.359 --> 00:22:31.359
Anyway, that's the poem.
00:22:31.839 --> 00:22:32.480
Wow.
00:22:32.799 --> 00:22:35.119
Heck yeah, you've got some good stuff in there.
00:22:35.279 --> 00:22:36.720
Thank you for sharing.
00:22:37.200 --> 00:22:46.319
Yeah, it's a new poem and it's a little different, but so far I've been kind of exploring uh family, death, getting older, just things like that.
00:22:46.559 --> 00:22:50.319
I guess most poets reflect on.
00:22:51.200 --> 00:22:52.960
Well, I love what you're creating.
00:22:53.119 --> 00:22:55.680
Thank you so much for sharing today.
00:22:55.839 --> 00:23:00.640
Thank you for continuing to create every day and sharing your work with all.
00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:02.160
Appreciate that.