Participants of the Second Annual Women’s Voices event in San Benito are shown Saturday inside the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center. (Photo by Christina R. Garza)
By CHRISTINA R. GARZA
Special to the NEWS
The Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center Writer’s Forum presented its second annual Women’s Voices event on Saturday.
The Writer’s Forum has met the first Tuesday of every month since 2000. This year 18 female students from the University of Texas at Brownsville submitted their original artwork for exhibition at the event. Paintings, photographs and sculptures were on display on the white brick walls of the Chicho’s interior. Attendees snacked on fruit and fresh limonada as artists and writers alike mingled.
The friendly atmosphere kept everyone in high spirits. The readers entertained the audience with short stories and poems that were inspirational, deeply personal, witty and tender. Their collective voices and shared experiences were familiar as talking to a longtime friend. Kathy Raines of Brownsville entertained the crowd as she recalled the pain of wearing stiff hair curlers to bed in the name of beauty. Soon after Raines’ performance, a fellow writer produced a curler from the audience to give a visual idea of Raines’ plight, laughs ensued from the attendees. The writers made everyone feel welcome.
Martha Ortiz, a sophomore, submitted a piece especially for the Women’s Voices Event. “I wanted to send a message for everyone who feels oppressed, as a human being you shouldn’t feel the need to stay quiet,” Ortiz said.
Julieta Corpus from Weslaco has been involved with the Writer’s Forum since 2009. One of the poems she read included some audience participation; she requested for the audience to respond with “yo” to positive affirmations in Spanish. Although English is her second language, Corpus crafts a love affair with words in her poetry. “It is thrilling when I can find the perfect English word to encompass the feeling or the image that I am trying to depict in the poem,” Corpus said. Corpus is active in the poetry scene and participates in many local events, such as the Valley International Poetry Festival coming up in April. Corpus is a graduate student at the University of Texas Pan American majoring in Creative Writing.
Corpus doesn’t see herself stopping anytime soon, “As long as I continue to be thrilled by language in either English or Spanish I will continue to write”, she said.
Delores Perez of Brownsville read a short autobiographical story about her childhood braids and a school bully. The personal narrative garnered many laughs from the audience as well as tender sighs as Perez described the humiliation of an ill received nickname. Perez read her story in English with a few Spanish words and expressions frequently used in the Rio Grande Valley, or what’s commonly referred to as Tex-Mex. Perez joked, “Those eggs in my mother’s refrigerator couldn’t keep up with every mal de ojo that was cast down upon me at that age. Too many evil eyes, so few eggs,” Perez read aloud. When asked why she had chosen that particular piece, she responded, “These stories are pieces of our lives that need to be resurrected and talked about and kept alive. Too many traditions are being lost.”
After the reading, attendees focused their attention on the art. The event proved a success for one art student. Rebekah Bonner, a junior at the university submitted a large painting of a woman’s smiling face illuminated by candlelight. “This piece represents the tranquility that a woman can bring from inside herself. She can create her own happiness. No matter what the situation is, she is in control of her outlook on the world and how she responds to certain situations,” Bonner explained. “The warm painting struck a chord with one of the guests in attendance, who happily purchased the work.
Read this story in the March 20 edition of the San Benito News, or subscribe to our E-Edition by clicking here.
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