When My Brother Was An Aztec by Natalie Diaz
"When America says myth, they mean we're unpinnable, and out of time, from before the beginning. To be before the beginning is a threat to the state." ~ Natalie Diaz⠀
⠀
On a total whim, I picked up the March/April edition of Poets & Writers magazine, because it had a ton of big name interviews: Sandra Cisneros, Emily St. John Mandel, etc. There was, I thought, an interview with Jacqueline Woodson, whose book, Red at the Bone, I read last year, but it turned out to be an interview by Jacqueline Woodson of another writer - Natalie Diaz - and it was so beautiful that I picked up a copy of her book of poetry, When My Brother Was An Aztec, the same day. The above quote is an excerpt from that interview, which is not available online but infinitely worth seeking out. Diaz is at the intersection of several marginalized communities - she is Indigenous, Latinx, and queer. Each of these identities intertwine in her poetry, which moves freely between English and Spanish as she discusses everything from growing up on the rez to her great grandmother's trauma at an Indian school to her parents' struggle to survive her brother's battle with addiction. Her poetry is dark and funny and sad and true, a short read but one that will leave you rereading passages and thinking about it for a long time to come.
⠀
On a total whim, I picked up the March/April edition of Poets & Writers magazine, because it had a ton of big name interviews: Sandra Cisneros, Emily St. John Mandel, etc. There was, I thought, an interview with Jacqueline Woodson, whose book, Red at the Bone, I read last year, but it turned out to be an interview by Jacqueline Woodson of another writer - Natalie Diaz - and it was so beautiful that I picked up a copy of her book of poetry, When My Brother Was An Aztec, the same day. The above quote is an excerpt from that interview, which is not available online but infinitely worth seeking out. Diaz is at the intersection of several marginalized communities - she is Indigenous, Latinx, and queer. Each of these identities intertwine in her poetry, which moves freely between English and Spanish as she discusses everything from growing up on the rez to her great grandmother's trauma at an Indian school to her parents' struggle to survive her brother's battle with addiction. Her poetry is dark and funny and sad and true, a short read but one that will leave you rereading passages and thinking about it for a long time to come.
Comments
Post a Comment