New Mexico Poetry Anthology 2023

By Levi Romero and Michelle Otero

These voices rise as a canto, singing the joys, sorrows, and praises of individual experiences to form a poetry collective that encompasses the poetic-cultural landscape that is New Mexico.”—Levi Romero (New Mexico Inaugural Poet Laureate) and Michelle Otero (Emerita Albuquerque Poet Laureate) New Mexico Poetry Anthology 2023 is an ode and homage to nuestra querencia, our beloved homeland. Two hundred original, previously unpublished poems resonate themes including community, culture, history, identity, landscape, and water. From a diverse group of poets, the poems are introspective and personal; reflective and astute; steady and celebratory. Including poignant, unique, even humorous perspectives on life in New Mexico influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, this collective of voices serves as a welcome remedio to all aspects of post-pandemic life, for ears aching for words of beauty, strength, and solace as we emerge from the cocoon of survivability.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Museum of New Mexico Press
• Release date: Oct 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9780890136782

Book preview

PREFACE

The New Mexico Poetry Anthology 2023 is a multiplicity of voices reflecting the complexity and layers of culture, history, spirituality, and poetic expression that is uniquely Nuevo México. Like the voices filling post office lobbies and general stores, and in the resolanas of our childhood homes of Dixon and Deming, the voices gathered here form a community. No one voice is more important than another. In these pages you will find published poets alongside your next-door neighbors, census workers, poets laureate, teachers, senators, high school students, professors, healthcare workers, doctors, and spoken-word artists, all revealing something of themselves that can only be felt through poetry. And, oh, how we have needed poetry to bridge the distance and soothe the isolation created by the pandemic. As we transition from screens back to shared space, may we continue drinking from poetry’s abundant well.

Poetry calls us in the way that grandparents do. It asks us to sit, to eat, to bring ourselves to a kitchen table covered in oilcloth, spilling over with memories and bathed in morning light. If we’re lucky, there’s coffee, biscochitos, and a heaping platter of stories to nurture our daily lives. As with this anthology, you can stay for hours. Or you can drop in, drink half a cup, and come back tomorrow and the next day.

These voices rise as a canto, singing the joys, sorrows, and praises of individual experiences to form a poetry collective that encompasses the poetic-cultural landscape that is New Mexico. The collection draws on eleven themes that encapsulate the broad expanse and essence of the place we call home—and not merely through speckled windshield observations, but as a witness to people, culture, history, and traditions.

The poems are personal interpretations of what it means to be threaded into the cultural fabric of the New Mexican landscape. There are poems that resonate as profound testaments to the sacred ideals of family, community, and identity. Others bestow themselves more to the abstractions and rhythmic cadences of nature and spirituality. They hum along with the water mantra reminding us that in an arid landscape, agua es vida. The collection is an ode and homage to nuestra querencia, our beloved homeland, where we are nurtured, healed, and have a sense of belonging. Here, we honor the generations of stewards, past and present, and we acknowledge that New Mexico exists on the traditional homelands of the nineteen Pueblos and the Jicarilla and Mescalero Apache peoples, as well as on the Navajo Nation.

Ultimately, we hope this collection speaks for the vastitude and complexity of a New Mexico that is both old and new, a space for community and inclusiveness that poetry itself helps to create.

Editors, New Mexico Poetry Anthology 2023

Levi Romero

Inaugural New Mexico State Poet Laureate

Michelle Otero

Emerita Albuquerque Poet Laureate

COMMUNITY

’55 DODGE

Chris Candelario

a ’55 Dodge down for the count

lost half to a muddy sandbank arroyo with

cottonwood roots deep down low how did

you get here—don’t think driven though

you point in the right direction upstream

from that 100-year flash flood

a community’s prize

from Chili Barrio to Hernandez Town

cruising those highways and back dusty trails

your details must have driven the ladies wild

hate to think of a rusted end looking so frail

clockwise I circle Olé Royal Lancer

but puzzled by that color—mauve or pink

with a questionable white or blacktop

I see right now Día de los Muertos speaks

to lowrider ghosts

and after sundown

La Llorona left the passenger’s door open

Screaming—howling—haunting

into non-translated winds

ripped-off-hubs became someone’s prizes

those wheels—wires—guts—cushion seats in

Rio del Oso—a river—no barely a stream days

gone adios enticing somebody’s dream

but right here ’55 Dodge realities my dream of

a photo safari on a bright sunny day.

MONUMENTO NACIONAL DE LOS PETROGLIFOS

Héctor Contreras-López

Agreste es tu escarcha, de bronce

tus brazaletes,

pregunta de piedra.

Me atrapas en el crepitar

de tus constelaciones, surges

desde la hendidura antiquísima

de la roca; saltas, cuernos al aire,

con el borrego cimarrón,

brincas junto al ciervo.

Con la textura

de tu cara de círculo me reconozco.

Miras sin ojos al cielo, tenaza

voraz es tu mano; tu cuerpo,

de óxido de olvido.

Allá arriba, en el llano azul

de tu extensa empuñadura, me quiebro

en dos.

Soy el impulso,

soy el pedernal, soy la Lluvia

que sale del cascarón cósmico

y se desprende

de las incrustaciones

prendidas a la cornamenta.

El bramar del venado y el temblor

que surge de su hocico

nos alcanzan a

lo largo de milenios en curso,

al igual que la tormenta que devoró

tu brazo izquierdo,

la que patinó tu solar

para que ya nada cambiara

sobre tu piel de siglos.

Me deslizo desde el altar, sereno;

me elevo con el águila,

fluyo del magma hacia la luz,

desde la brisa que mece la hierba

y te recubre a ratos.

La serpiente de cuatrocientas

patas me acosa; apenas

soy la araña

desde la profundidad de la sombra,

salamandra o caracoles calcáreos,

monumento sin nombre,

eterna explosión que se extiende a los

confines de tus miembros.

Soy la gota de agua

que te abrió al tiempo;

soy el invierno y sus glaciares;

soy la brillantez que te cubre

y que te arropará ya

para siempre.

PETROGLYPH NATIONAL MONUMENT

Héctor Contreras-López

Wild is your frost, your bracelets

made out of bronze,

question of stone.

You catch me in the crackle

of your constellations, you emerge

from the ancient crack

in the rock; you jump, horns in the air,

with the bighorn,

you leap along with the deer.

I recognize myself

in the texture of your round face.

You see the sky without eyes, your hand

is an avid claw; your body is

made out of the rust of oblivion.

Up there, in the blue plain

of your vast hilt, I break

in two.

I am the drive,

the flint, the rain

that flows from the cosmic shell

and detaches itself

from the incrustations

attached to your horns.

The deer’s grunt and the trembling

in his mouth

reach us

through thousands of years,

like the storm that devoured

your left arm,

The one that applied patina to your plot

so nothing would change

on your skin over the centuries.

I slide from the altar, quiet;

I rise with the eagle,

I flow from magma towards light,

from the breeze that rocks the grass

and covers you from time to time.

The four-hundred-footed

snake chases me;

I barely am the spider

from the shade’s deep,

salamander or calcareous snails,

a monument without a name,

an everlasting explosion that reaches

the ends of your limbs.

I am the drop of water

that opened you to time;

I am the winter season and its glaciers;

I am the brilliance that covers you

and that will tuck you in

forever.

YOU ARE MY BEAUTIFUL CITY

Jim Dudley

Oh, I know the story well enough:

first the tracks through the grass and under the groves;

then the adobe houses, the trampled mud, the boxcar courthouse selling paper rectangles of

cholla and goatsbeard and aster and slopes of grama.

And the mesa, scraped and molded into dusty streets, still nourishing hollyhocks along back fences.

Then came gravel, bricks, and concrete—materials more impermeable to you.

Shacks gave way to fourteen-room dwellings;

Your skin survived in vacant lots, hidden as well as possible from Main Street and Broadway.

By then we’d used enough cement trucks and bulldozers ’til at last plain and bottomland and foothill, all

were safely covered by pavements

which sprouted tall steel buildings, parking garages, and commercial radio antennae.

And you appeared to die.

But wise ones recognize you still.

My city thrives with new habitats:

cars and computers, malls, coffee shops, stock markets and building sites—

where inhabitants thrive something like before, only with new landmarks and new languages.

Street signs and shop windows and banks on the corner, instead of willow clumps, rock

outcroppings, or cloud talk.

Be at peace, you say.

Beneath these streets water flows, plains stretch, soil waits,

And you stir in your eternity of careless regeneration:

Roots to leaves, sewage to poppies,

And all that sharp and stinky stuff we feed you just bitter medicine for our lasting good.

Mine is a beautiful city.

ALL TRAILS LEAD TO SANTA FE

John Feins

Esta noche

this night

Santa Fe

the holy faith

golden light flies

beyond vigas

cobalt skies

shadows of high

ranges

wrapped in gentle winds

piñon and juniper

cedar evenings

bells ring

over Assisi’s basilica

Orion rises a caballero

with no notion for tomorrow

only brighter light

the Magi followed

on desert hegira

across dry highlands

to find the child messiah

his message of love

for all my relations

this night

Mitakuye Oyasin

twinkling stars

are council fires of

nearby tribes

we dance a sacred dance

ancient and unchanged

throughout the ages

horse stick in hand

we gallop and charge

in the year of the horse

Tewa songs

mariachi melodies

all that fall

sweet and easy

as rare rain

to wash away

any worries

Zozobra didn’t burn

this night

Old Man Gloom

gone for good

we’re all young now

all newand dancing

on the canvas landscape

where tonight we enchant

tonight we reflect

past the blue gate

beyond la luna azul

to Magi stars

NIGHT SCHOOL

Lisa Fisher

Amid the hummingbirds and lilacs of May,

graduation day streamed into the Peñasco High

School gym. A first-time teacher at the ceremony,

I sat watching neighbors, brightly clad in colors of

hope and pride, take their honored places

in the embrace of so glorious a moment.

Echoing their festive attire, the gym was decked

in crepe paper garlands of roses. Folding chairs

in rows held the witnesses, family and friends,

angled at the podium and arbor: yes, a vine-trellised

arbor where seniors would come of age, receive

their diplomas and attain the blessed status of grads.

This ritual a wedding of the young to the community,

a passage ripe with promise that implied a lifelong

dedication to achievements in which all would share.

At the door I spotted Esteban, walking in with his

father and grandmother on either arm. He grinned,

waved, steered them toward me. We shook hands,

exchanging words of praise for our star graduate,

my former student, their beloved heir. The absence

of his mother on his day of triumph blurred our eyes.

He hugged me, thanked me warmly, and I with like

gratitude congratulated him. Nine months before,

when our mutual education began, I could not have

imagined myself in the clasp of this zealous adversary.

The offer to teach Esteban and his compatriots came

belatedly. Unprepared but eager I agreed. My parents

both taught; surely, they’d passed that gene on to me.

Not until opening night of my debut performance as a

real teacher did I begin to doubt my innate skill. The

set-up was a minefield the class crossed guardedly.

Anglo teacher, Hispanic students, often not a

harmonious mix in their history. I’d subbed at

Peñasco High and knew that scant respect grew

between teachers and students: both parties felt abused.

But this was outside the run of daily school: a two-hour

night class for seniors that met just twice a week, earning

them college credits through UNM Northern Branch.

Ambitious kids, they’d signed up for it on their own.

I had no curriculum, no books, no supervision. Began by

reading a piece from Aldo Leopold to show the power

of image and vivid detail in an essay. I read with reverence,

We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire

dying in her eyes, and saw theirs reflect incredulity.

A pause ensued. Had wonder at such finely wrought prose

stunned them? No, not these children of the wilderness.

Hunting, killing, dressing out meat: such was the stuff

of Life Skills 101. You ever had a bear tamale, Ms. Fisher?

Or venison stew? Now that’s eating. Green fire: Maybe

the wolf was muy picante, like my grandma’s chile

Esteban proposed, the cynical wise-guy, the linchpin in

winning the hearts of this crew, which he already

owned. But they didn’t mind discussion, a way to kill

time before answering in their notebooks the questions

I was bound to write on the board. Instead, I assigned

a descriptive essay, due Thursday, and unsure how to go

on, ended class an hour early, thoroughly discouraged.

In the weeks that followed I spent hours revising

their tangled syntax and twisted diction. Marked

every grammar error with care. Wrote page-long

comments in neat script. Had no idea how to grade

their work. Labored eight hours preparing for

every two of class. But a month in, I had still not

cracked the cynic’s shell. Esteban punctuated each

statement I made with a joke. We were waging an

undeclared war, and he had all the troops, though I

refused to surrender. Even his writing sneered—that

is, until he gave me an assignment that taught me

how to read him.

The prompt for the essay was this: Describe an experience

that changed who you are. It could be a victory, a loss,

a discovery, a mystery. Esteban wrote of his mother’s death

the summer before. It was awash in Hallmark sentimentality,

like a maudlin sympathy card, and rife with prayers to God,

begging Him to keep his mother safe in Heaven, where he

would someday be with her again. I read the essay