(Courtesy photo/Albert Villegas)
By ALBERT VILLEGAS
Special to the NEWS
The longtime connection between poet Erika Marie Garza and Aleida L. Garcia paved the way to a San Benito event called Poetry as Ofrenda: An Evening with Erika Marie Garza, held last Thursday evening at the San Benito Cultural Heritage Museum on Heywood in San Benito.
Garcia, Director for the San Benito Cultural Arts Department [CAD], hosted Garza, and the reason there is a connection between the two women is due to a friendship they’ve shared since the late 1990s.
They “connect” and the manner in which the three-hour event progressed, birthed other connections to the author.
“I’ve known her for many years, both personally and professionally, and her poetry is something our community would enjoy,” Garcia said.
She led a discussion, with Garza seated next to her, about the poetry she produces. The camaraderie between the two was evident, which made the evening run smoothly among guests who attended.
Garza began producing poetry when she was a middle school student with the Edcouch-Elsa Independent School District. Now in her 50s, her poetry, such as her life, has progressed.
Her work focuses on womanhood, motherhood, Chicanx/border culture and identity, political issues, mental illness, and code switching.
“I started as a teenager, then a young woman, eventually became a mother, and my children are now grown,” Garza said. “My poetry has evolved with time and life experiences.”
Garza’s life, she said, has been enriched from living in the Rio Grande Valley.
She is co-editor of New Border Voice and Juventud: Growing up on the Border.
Her stop in San Benito focused, among other topics, on how she was raised as a devout Catholic, but as she came into her own admits “straying.”
In fact, Garza shares many attributes with artist Mitch D’arte, whose work called Vestigios de lo Sagrado will continue to be exhibited in the museum walls and part of its ceiling until month’s end.
“We have that in common,” Garza said of D’arte. “We grew up Catholic, but as we got older, somehow, didn’t share the same strong beliefs as our relatives and shared it through art or poetry. We still believe, we still pray, but we’re not religious.”
Garza is the author of Unwoven for which she was invited to share thoughts of.
The book, in paperback form, was published in 2014, and it has many different themes. It can be purchased on Amazon for $9.99.
The boom overview on Amazon reads as follows: “The first poetry book from one of the most distinctive voices in South Texas, Unwoven is an unflinchingly honest exploration of Chicana womanhood along the border, a scattering of quetzal feathers and jade that celebrate the achingly lovely paradox of life on the edges and in the middle. Playful, artful, and wholly memorable, these poems prove Erika Garza-Johnson deserving of her enduring moniker: La Poeta Power.”
Garza has been part of the literary scene since 2003, hosting readings and workshops at local venues including rock and roll bars, taquerias, art houses and her own home.
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