3 Questions with mónica teresa ortiz
mónica teresa ortiz is a poet born and raised in Texas. mónica was a 2021-2022 Freedomways journalist in residence and artist in residence for UT Austin's Planet Texas 2050 initiative. They have published work in Annulet #2, the Brooklyn Review, and Hyperallergic, and have work forthcoming in Scalawag and Fence. Follow them on Twitter @elgallosalvaje.
Xu Li chats with mónica about their work from Issue 70, out now.
mónica, I’ve been feeling grateful to have your essay over at Annulet to turn over again and again on this question of the role of poetry, especially during the ongoing global pandemic and the way state and institutional abandonment continue to harm those most vulnerable. You’ve written, “Poetry can hold a space of thought and care amid a society that offers no safety or care while presenting a way to disrupt systems of harm, while it also allows me to cultivate community with the lands where I was raised.” I was curious to hear what disruption’s momentums have looked like or meant to you lately in your own poetry practice?
There are disruptions every day—inside the home and outside. Writing for me has always been a pause from chaos—an escape to another world where I can create. I think the most challenging disruption lately (and perpetually) has been the chaos of the exterior/interior life draining my energy to a point where I just want to watch movies and not think, not engage. But those are the times when I need to write the most, to come alive and not just. . . shut down. And a way I have found to reconnect with myself is through walking and cycling. In the mornings I go on a thirty-minute bike ride, and it clears my head. I live on the edge of a rural area, so it's quiet and I see vultures, crows, egrets, and sometimes cows. Now it's time for corn to grow, so I ride out to the cornfield and it helps me breathe. Walking does the same. Touching the earth and feeling the wind and sun are all very grounding.
Who are some of the poets that you’re reading or thinking alongside right now that offer this or other forms of disruption? Right now I am blessed to be in a writing group and think alongside as well as read brilliant poets: Sequoia Maner, Ariana Brown, Bernard Ferguson, and Jesus I. Valles. Being in conversation with them has been an absolute gift and a space of care, safety, and tenderness—which many of us are not afforded so easily. Each one of them offers a different poetic, and I appreciate learning, unlearning, and creating with them. Another that I think is disrupting/creating is Harmony Holiday. I just bought her most recent book, Maafa, and there is no other poet like Harmony. These are the writers I am holding and thinking about lately, who are informing my work.
Is there anything you’d like to share about your poem, “supper time” that we don’t know?
I took a workshop with Warsan Shire, and this poem is a version of the writing I did in that workshop.
You can read “supper time” from our latest issue here.