About Me
I am a bilingual Mexican-American writer from Chicago. Currently, I am a student at Cornell University majoring in plant science, with a concentration in evolution and biodiversity.
Outside of writing I am committed to exploring the world. new interests. As a result I have acquired a broad range of activities that thoroughly bring me joy. I am a poet, an author, a ballet dancer, a classical music enthusiast, an aspiring pianist, a charcoal illustrator, a hiker, a lover of botany, and a disciple to the pathless woods. I continue to explore new interests, and can’t wait to see what new experiences I shall encounter.
Artist Statement
I aim to create beauty, to inspire a reader, listener, or soul to enter a landscape filled with curiosity, and joy for the world.
Inspiration
I am inspired by the beauty that surrounds me. Nature and visual art are the main muses to my works.
I find it most enjoyable to go off the path and seek out a pleasant grove. It is under such boughs of vegetation that I feel the most imaginative and creative. Nature for me is not a place for merely visiting, but rather a place in which to interact with my surroundings with unchallenged curiosity and imagination. Few places within our modern world still allow us to explore these often hidden facets to the human experience. It is for this reason that nature forms such a large part of my identity, and subsequently of my work. Within my writing nature always plays a fundamental role. This is significant because I wish to emulate the natural settings that inspire my curiosity and imagination, in the hopes that you, as the reader, will realize the importance of nature within the human experience.
You will notice that each of my works is paired with a piece of visual art. This pairing is purposeful; often it was this specific work of art that inspired me to compose a verse. You may also notice that the majority of these pieces form part of the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago. This is because it is within those galleries that I have spent the most time pondering art and the beauty that it hails. The works within those galleries have inspired my imagination to an unrivaled extent. I wish for you, the reader, to partake in a similar experience to mine, dreaming in those galleries as I did.
The Process
The majority of my poems are born in the dead of night; I will often find myself lying awake in bed with a poem yearning to emerge. Most nights I yield to this butterfly-like feeling, allowing myself to turn the light back on. I almost always listen to music while I write. More often than not I will place one piece of music on repeat for hours, allowing the melody to become ambiguous, like an ocean of mist; and the individual lines of poetry rise out of the mist. The passage of time during these hours behaves strangely; before I know it, it’s 3 am. I hardly ever finish a poem in one sitting. I usually wake up the next morning to review and finish the work of the night.
Bilingual Writing
My mother tongue is Spanish. This is the language of my immigrant heritage, and therefore it embraces me with an unmeasurable warmth and beauty. To me Spanish is the language of summer storms, the language that soars, the language as eloquent as the rolling Sierra Madre foothills. The syllables are imbued with life.
My earliest poems were in Spanish. As I began to take writing classes in high school and college, I found it necessary to write poetically in English. At first English struck me as an overly fastidious language to write in; however, I eventually became accustomed to its unique cadence and rhythm. Currently I enjoy writing in English as much as I do in Spanish. This is fantastic because now I can share my work with more readers.
