jo reyes-boitel

World class supporter of writers, and a playwright and poet herself, Tammy Gomez will be hosting a reading this Saturday virtually.

Join me. I’ll be reading. And if I am giving advice, watch out… I tend to make people feel like they need to change their lives. Just warning you.

Visit FB for the zoom link.

With thanks to Gerard Robledo, I will be reading with him and Vincent Cooper at San Antonio College on Thursday, September 23, 2021. Come through if you are able. This reading is live and in person! Plus, an open mic after.

I’ll also be in town for an extra day or two so if you didn’t get a chance to sit with me and a cup of coffee, let’s plan something!

This upcoming reading was a kind of coming out party for the three of us, after having been diligent in our quarantine forever now. But, alas, we are virtual. Come see us read! You will wish you’d at least have put on lipstick and wrapped a feather boa around your neck. Do it! See you there, my lovelies.

South Texas College has invited me to read from my work and discuss ways I’ve made toward poetic voice. Wooh, that work never ends, que no? But, I hope you’ll join me in this pride talk in celebration of Queer Pride Month. Register for the webinar here.

I’ve moved away from what ritualistic things I might need in orer to start a writing session. I tell myself this, anyway, while still choosing a candle, a cup of coffee or tea, a good pen, and something that holds memory, even if only momentarily. Gemini Ink recently featured my writing desk on their blog. I will say this: more than anything, I need my desk to feel like it’s the only place in the world and, by writing, it does become that.

Gemini Ink has invited me back to teach a community-based class on poetry, this time with a focus onpoetry for new poets. I like the idea of being a new poet. Sometimes I think I’m an experienced poet but, at least weekly something reminds me that I can sit at my desk or on my porch completely in awe of the world around me or the experiences I’ve made it through and find I struggle to find any words at all. I think this is the moment we must let ourselves float through as poets. This makes all poets new.

I am looking forward to meeting new poets, as well as those who haven’t written in a while because of the changing world we have had to navigate or because our lives have changed and we can’t find room for poetry or because we are in awe and don’t have words.

In this class we’ll generate new work that starts as conversations with other poems or with ourselves and our own questions. Then, we’ll look at opportunities for where our poetry can go after it’s been written. Yes, we can and will discuss critique or writing support groups, poetic tools, ways to build community, and even how to stay motivated to keep writing.

But, more than anything, we’ll allow ourselves to get to the center of poetry: emotion, story, and breath. Without these there is no poetry.

I hope you’ll join me. For more information or to register contact Gemini Ink.

Vanessa Martir‘s Writing Our Lives workshop series offers participants a larger view of mothering within a patriarchal and historical context, as well as within the context of our own mothers’ upbringing. I was able to participate in the worshop when she came down to San Antonio last year and was invited to submit work for this special feature through Intervenxions. You can read Vanessa’s intro and work by other participants. Mine is also there but I wanted to include it here too.

“bitter oranges”

My mother always said she had horse’s hair and I would laugh because I thought horse’s hair was super soft. Hers was more like skunk or goat. Thick. Bristly, but shiny. It moves as one, like an animal breathing—in then out—as fingers pass through. Her skin dewy, fresh from the shower. She smelled like soap, the scent lingering on her skin for hours. When she cooked, her fingertips smelled of sweating onions, or the cold, wet smell of meat. Sometimes a distant cigarette. She always smoked outside, even in the coldest months, stepping away from her own exhales to avoid the lingering scent.

I was born in Minnesota. An outlier, of course. Born in Havana, the island became a myth for my mother. In my life with her I’ve seen her choose other places to temporarily call home. Always Florida, in one way or another. Homestead sometimes, Miami proper when she feels free. We are in Central Texas, which is an endurance. Like bitter oranges which have a tantalizing appearance, but leave an impossible tartness in the mouth. Sour. She’s made do but never cared for this place.

For Christmas, I special ordered a couple of pounds of bitter oranges and was set to make dulce de naranja agria. It’s my mother’s favorite dessert. My grandfather would make it over several hours until the house smelled like orange syrup. I scraped away the orange zest until my hands were sticky with its oil. I scooped out the flesh and membrane to make mojo later. I cleaned the rind out, cutting it into quarter moons. They sat through three cycles of rolling boils for hours, until they became ghosts of themselves. Finally, they could be doused in sugared water and boiled down once more with cinnamon sticks. A sweetness thought unfeasible.

I placed it in a decorative glass container with an orange ribbon. My mother bites into one of the sugared skins and tells me it’s like a gift from her father, my grandfather, who by this time has been gone twenty years. Then she is silent. Her face creases and her look has moved from remembrance to anger. I don’t know what is bothering her. “I shouldn’t have had kids,” she finally says to me, not looking in my direction. She took a role she never wanted and somehow, she thought she was expected to hold the weight of that decision until the lilt of freedom was truly gone. Then she says to me: “You are so nice. I give advice and you listen, but you don’t take any of it. You’ll do what you want, I guess.”

**update**

The reading date has been updated. With thanks to the San Antonio Museum of Art and its staff, who will be hosting this gorgeous reading on June 19, 2021, from 6pm to 8pm. Register to attend this virtula reading at https://bit.ly/WRDSA21.

June 20 is World Refugee Day.

In San Antonio local and regional nonprofits, community leaders, city representatives, and poets are celebrating the vibrancy of our migrant and refugee populations with a poetry declaration.

Those who identify as refugees and asylum seekers and who are interested in reading with regional poet activists can submit work. Please visit www.poetrydeclaration.org for more details. Details will be posted here as they are announced.