This summer, we’re thrilled to host Madison poet laureate Angela Trudell Vasquez as on of our four Priory Writers’ Retreat writers-in residence! When you are accepted into The Priory, you’ll have the option to schedule a personal one-on-one session with Angie!
Angie Trudell Vasquez is a Mexican-American writer and holds an MFA in poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Finishing Line Press published her third collection of poetry, In Light, Always Light, in 2019, and recently accepted her fourth collection, My People Redux, for publication. Her poems have appeared in the Yellow Medicine Review, The Slow Down, the Raven Chronicles, The Rumpus, on the Poetry Foundation’s website, and elsewhere. She is the current poet laureate of Madison, Wisconsin and the first Latina to hold the position.
Read on for a mini-interview with Angie!
1. What about The Priory Retreat are you most excited by? Giving back to the writers what I have learned about putting a collection together, sharing my knowledge, and processes.
2. Can you share a bit about a mentor or writing experience that helped shape your own work? Wow, this is such a big question. I can think back to when I was an undergrad in my twenties and Jody Swilky, one of my first early poetry mentors, asked me why I never write about my own culture. And later in my forties, I think of my poetry mentors at IAIA (Institute of American Indian Arts) and what they gave to me in terms of being able to edit my own work and other’s. Sherwin Bitsui, Joan Naviyuk Kane, and Santee Frazier were my poetry mentors at IAIA, and for two years all I did was live and breathe poetry. Post MFA, I examine and reflect on the inner architecture of a manuscript or a poem now. This is something I practice.
3. What are you reading these days? Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer; the Yellow Medicine Review Fall 2021 edition, guest edited by Shauna Osborn, The Music Issue with a playlist; Sandra Cisneros’ Martita, I Remember You; Above the Bejeweled City by Jon Davis; and collected poems of Federico Garcia Lorca.
4. Bonus: What has been keeping you creating during these pandemic days?
“Love. The world keeps spinning and we keep breathing alongside the people we love and care about. It is a way to recognize loss too. People live on in poems. ”
Love. The world keeps spinning and we keep breathing alongside the people we love and care about. It is a way to recognize loss too. People live on in poems. Writing has always been where I go to. I have been journaling my feelings during this time of the pandemic. It helps. Poetry is my salvation. I can carefully craft a poem. I am in control on the page, and there is so much to write about.