Throughout National Poetry Month, we will be interviewing poets here and spotlighting them on our Instagram and YouTube channel. We hope you enjoy!
Writer’s Atelier: Why did you want to start writing poetry?
Letisia Cruz: I started writing as a girl and I think initially I was just enamored with language. I grew up bilingual, speaking Spanish at home and English at school, and I found dichos (common sayings) fascinating. I spent a lot of time translating phrases from Spanish to English and trying to understand language and the ways in which we use words to make sense of the world. These things have stayed with me, and in many ways I still feel like I’m learning to speak, or as if I have no first language, only second languages. Poetry continues to be my way into the world. It’s my way of sorting my own experience.
WA: What’s your favorite poem (or poems!) that you’ve written and why?
LC: I don’t necessarily have a favorite poem that I’ve written, or that anyone else has written. Not that there aren’t many poems that I love, but I think what I’m drawn to largely depends on the moment, the day, or whatever I’m going though at the time. There are some classics that have stayed with me for as long as I can remember, like Jose Marti’s “Los Zapaticos de Rosa.” I think every Cuban kid could recite that poem from memory! It’s nostalgic and reminds me of my early childhood, which was a happy time for me.
WA: Who are some of your favorite poets? Why do you like their work?
LC: There is so much great poetry in the world and so many poets whose words have left their mark. A few favorites are Alejandra Pizarnik, without question. Her ability to capture so much within the smallest of spaces is incomparable. I love the musicality of Federico Garcia Lorca’s poems, especially in Spanish. Excilia Saldaña’s work is a celebration of Cuba and Caribbean rituals. Stumbling onto her poems felt like a homecoming. I’m also inspired by the fearlessness and intensity of Gabriela Mistral’s words.
About the Poet
Letisia Cruz is a Cuban-American writer and artist. She is the author of Migrations & Other Exiles (Lost Horse Press, 2023), winner of the 2022 Idaho Prize for Poetry, and The Lost Girls Book of Divination (Tolsun Books, 2018). She is the recipient of a 2022 artist grant from the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance and was selected as a 2022 Dali Dozen Emerging Artist for her project Rituales: An Exploration of Faith in the Caribbean.
Her writing and artwork have appeared in [PANK], Ninth Letter, The Acentos Review, Gulf Stream, Saw Palm, Third Coast, Duende, Moko, 300 Days of Sun, and Black Fox Literary Magazine, among others. Her work was previously selected as a finalist for the 2021 Sexton Prize for Poetry, the 2018 Digging Press Chapbook Series, and the 2016 Gazing Grain Chapbook Contest. She is a graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University’s MFA program and lives in St. Petersburg, Florida with her partner and their three cats.
