14 Questions with MÓNICA TERESA ORTIZ
1. Hey Mónica, what does it mean to you to be a
poet from Texas?
Being from Texas is essential to me as a poet. It is the land that birthed me, that breathed life and knowledge into me. Texas is my muse, my love, my obsession. From the windy plains where I grew up to the Chihuahuan Desert where I learned more about my craft.
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2. Hey Mónica, which foreign language poet do you most wish you could read in the original?
I would love to read Nizar Qabani in Arabic, or Suzanne Césaire in French. They are such beautiful writers that I know English does not do their work justice.
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3. Hey Mónica, do you collect anything?
I try to live as minimally as possibly, so the only items I would say that I collect are books and calaveras. I also have a fair amount of crosses, but I collect those because they remind me of my abuelita.
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4. Hey Mónica, have you done any collaborations with other poets (or artists? or fill in the blank)?
I worked with both artists on the covers of my book muted blood and the cover of autobiography of a semiromantic anarchist. I told them my vision and they each made something really incredible from that.
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5. Hey Mónica, any poets you think should be household names in poetry households?
I just came across Abdulla Pashew’s work. It’s astounding. Also Dionne Brand. The important work Brand is creating should definitely be in more conversations.
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6. Hey Mónica, if you could insert yourself as a member into any historical art/literary “scene” what would it be?
I would have probably belonged to either the Infrarrealista community in Mexico City, or the Surrealist movement in Paris. Both have greatly influenced me as a thinker and poet.
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7. Hey Mónica, what’s the last non-poetry book you loved?
Demonic Grounds: Black Women & the Cartographies of Struggle by Katherine McKittrick.
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8. Hey Mónica, what’s the last great poetry book you read?
Jackie Wang’s The Sunflower Cast a Spell to Save Us from the Void, which just came out.
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9. Hey Mónica, what’s the first poem you remember blowing your mind?
The entire reason I became a poet was because I took a class as an undergrad on poetics, and we read Audre Lorde’s The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance. I read the poem “Echoes” that is in that collection and changed my major from journalism to literature. Until that moment, I had no idea that poetry could have that effect.
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10. Hey Mónica, working on any projects you want to tell us about?
Working on a summer project as an artist-in-residence, on climate change in Texas. Also working on my first media project with another artist, putting together a zine, and planning my first bikepacking trip, through the Southwest. Also putting together a chapbook of poems written in 2020 and 2021.
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11. Hey Mónica, are there are any metaphysical or spiritual ideas that inform your approach to poetry?
I have always been really interested in theology so mysticism and spirituality have influenced me and my thinking. Especially lately, these ideas and ways of telling stories and explaining certain practices have found their way into my writing and themes.
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12. Hey Mónica, when you sit down to write is death ever sitting beside you?
Death is my old comrade and never far from me. We are in constant conversation.
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13. Hey Mónica, have a favorite poetry book cover?
If I don’t recognize a book or a poet, I will buy it based off the cover. I love the New Directions pamphlet covers, including my favorite, which is The Iceland by Sakutarō Hagiwara.
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14. Hey Mónica, what’s the best poetry reading you’ve seen?
I am really blessed because here in Austin, I have been able to see Roger Reeves and Jesús I. Valles both read. Every time I see them read and perform, it is an absolute experience and honor. They really understand delivery, emotion, and presence. But a reading that I still think about to this day is one I saw of Dr. Sequoia Maner from 2015 or 2016 (I think). She read a triptych on Dylan Roof, and it haunts me. She’s never read it again, but I haven’t ever forgotten it.
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[This Q&A was conducted in March 2020 and first published, via Facebook and Twitter, in April 2020. Some answers were updated for publication in April 2021.]
A Dozen Nothing 