Lorna Dee Cervantes

Lorna Dee Cervantes. Courtesy http://voiceseducation.org/content/lorna-dee-cervantes-mahmoud-darwish Voices].

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Lorna Dee Cervantes
Occupation	Poet, Philosopher, Publisher, Editor, Professor
Nationality	USA
Notable work(s)	From the Cables of Genocide: Poems on love and hunger; Emplumada
Notable award(s)	American Book Award, NEA Fellowship, Pushcart Prize
Official website http://lornadice.blogspot.com/
File:Portal.svg Literature portal

Lorna Dee Cervantes (born August 6, 1954) is an award-winning Chicana, Native American (Chumash), feminist, activist poet who is considered one of the major Chicana poets of the past 40 years. She has been described by Alurista, as "probably the best Chicana poet active today."

Life

Lorna Dee Cervantes was born in 1954 in San Francisco, California. She grew up in San Jose, California, speaking English exclusively. This was strictly enforced by her parents, who allowed only English to be spoken at home by her and her brother. This was to avoid the racism that was occurring in her community at that time.

Lorna Dee Cervantes was an associate professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder until 2007. She considers herself "a Chicana writer, a feminist writer, a political writer" (Cervantes). Her collections of poetry, Emplumada, From the Cable of Genocide, Drive: The First Quartet and Ciento: 100 100-Word Love Poems are held in high esteem and have attracted numerous nominations and awards. She is currently the Regents Lecturer at UC Berkeley, California for the 2011/12 year. In an interview conducted by Sonia V. Gonzalez, the poet states that through writing and publishing, “I was trying to give back that gift that had saved me when I discovered, again, African-American women’s poetry. I was having this vision of some little Chicana in San Antonio [Texas] going, scanning the shelves, like I used to do, scanning the shelves for women’s names, or Spanish surnames, hoping she’ll pull it out, relate to it. So it was intentionally accessible poetry, intended to bridge that gap, that literacy gap.” Cervantes was actively involved in the publication of numerous Chicana/o writers from the 1970s onwards when she produced her own Chicana/o literary journal,MANGO "which was the first to publish Sandra Cisneros, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Alberto Rios, Ray Gonzalez, Ronnie Burk, and Orlando Ramírez [co-editor]. Cervantes and MANGO also championed the early work of writers Gary Soto, José Montoya, José Montalvo, José Antonio Burciaga, and her personal favourite, Luís Omar Salinas"

Education

• Abraham Lincoln High School, San Jose: School year, 1972
• San Jose Community College: Associate Arts (high honours), School year, 1976
• San Jose State University: BA Creative Arts (high honours), School year, 1984
• UC Santa Cruz: PhD History of Consciousness (all but dissertation), 1984-88

Career

• Instructor: UC Santa Cruz, August 1985 - May 1986
• Associate Professor of English: University of Colorado at Boulder, August 1988 - August 2007
• Visiting Scholar: University of Houston, 1994 - 1995
• Ethnic Studies Lecturer: San Francisco State University, 2006 - 2007
• Independent Scholar: Poet, Philosopher, San Francisco Bay Area, 2007 - Present
• UC Regents Lecturer: UC Berkeley (English Department) August 2011 - Present
• Cervantes has presented over 500 poetry readings, lectures and performances (Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Vassar, Mt. Holyoke, Princeton, Brown, Cornell.

Recognition

• Patterson Prize For Poetry
• Battrick Award For Poetry
• Latino Book Award
• Latin American Book Award (Second Place)
• Denver Book Award (Finalist)
• Pushcart Prize (x2)
• California Arts Council Grant for Poetry (x2)
• Hudson D. Walker Fellowship Award at The Fine Arts Work Center
• Colorado Poet Laureate (Finalist)
• Vassar Visiting Writers Award
• Mexican-American Studies Center Visiting Scholar Award
• The National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Scholar Award
• San Jose State University Outstanding Alumnus
• San Jose Community College Outstanding Alumnus
• The White House Third Millennium Evening with Poets Laureate Attendee (invited by President and Hillary Clinton as one of the best 100 poets in The United States)
• Library of Congress Reading (x2)
• American Book Award (1982)
• National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Grants for Poetry (1979 and 1989)
• Lila-Wallace Reader’s Digest Foundation Writer’s Award for Outstanding Chicana Literature (1995)

Publications

Poetry

• Emplumada. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1981.
• From the Cables of Genocide: Poems of Love and Hunger. Houston, TX: Arte Publico Press, 1991.
• Drive: The First Quartet. San Antonio, TX: Wings Press, 2006.
• Ciento: 100 100-Word Love Poems. San Antonio, TX: Wings Press, 2011.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

Edited

• Red Dirt (co-editor), a cross-cultural poetry journal
• Mango (founder), a literary review

Anthologized

• After Aztlan: Latino Poets of the Nineties (edited by Ray González). 1992.
• No More Masks! An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Women Poets (edited by Florence Howe). 1993.
• Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry (edited by. Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Jennifer Gillan). 1994.

See also

"Poem For The Young White Man..." by Lorna Dee Cervantes Read by Dr. Marion Rohrleitner

• List of Chicano poets
• List of U.S. poets

References

• Alexander, Donna Maria. "The Geography Closest In": The Space of the Chicana in the Writings of Gloria Anzaldúa and Lorna Dee Cervantes. Boole Library Masters Theses Collections, University College Cork. October 2010. Print.
• Poetry Saved My Life: An Interview with Lorna Dee Cervantes By: González, Sonia V.; MELUS: The Journal of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, 2007 Spring; 32 (1): 163-80.
• Poetry as Mother Tongue? Lorna Dee Cervantes's Emplumada By: Scheidegger, Erika. IN: Rehder and Vincent, American Poetry: Whitman to Present. Tübingen, Germany: Narr Franke Attempto; 2006. pp. 193–208
• The Shape and Range of Latina/o Poetry: Lorna Dee Cervantes and William Carlos Williams By: Morris-Vásquez, Edith; Dissertation, U of California, Riverside, 2004.
• Loss and Recovery of Memory in the Poetry of Lorna D. Cervantes By: González, Sonia V.; Dissertation, Stanford U, 2004.
• Lorna Dee Cervantes (1954-) By: Harris-Fonseca, Amanda Nolacea. IN: West-Durán, Herrera-Sobek, and Salgado, Latino and Latina Writers, I: Introductory Essays, Chicano and Chicana Authors; II: Cuban and Cuban American Authors, Dominican and Other Authors, Puerto Rican Authors. New York, NY: Scribner's; 2004. pp. 195–207
• Memphis Minnie, Genocide, and Identity Politics: A Conversation with Alex Stein By: Stein, Alex; Michigan Quarterly Review, 2003 Fall; 42 (4): 631-47.
• "Remembering We Were Never Meant to Survive": Loss in Contemporary Chicana and Native American Feminist Poetics By: Rodríguez y Gibson, Eliza; Dissertation, Cornell U, 2002.
• Love, Hunger, and Grace: Loss and Belonging in the Poetry of Lorna Dee Cervantes and Joy Harjo. By: Rodriguez y Gibson, Eliza; Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers, 2002; 19 (1): 106-14.
• Chicana Ways: Conversations with Ten Chicana Writers By: Ikas, Karin Rosa (ed.), Reno, NV: U of Nevada P; 2002.
• I Trust Only What I Have Built with My Own Hands: An Interview with Lorna Dee Cervantes By: González, Ray; Bloomsbury Review, 1997 Sept-Oct; 17 (5): 3, 8.
• Bilingualism and Dialogism: Another Reading of Lorna Dee Cervantes's Poetry By: Savin, Ada. IN: Arteaga, An Other Tongue: Nation and Ethnicity in the Linguistic Borderlands. Durham, NC: Duke UP; 1994. pp. 215–23
• "An Utterance More Pure Than Word": Gender and the Corrido Tradition in Two Contemporary Chicano Poems. By: McKenna, Teresa. IN: Keller and Miller, Feminist Measures: Soundings in Poetry and Theory. Ann Arbor, MI: U of Michigan P; 1994. pp. 184–207
• Divided Loyalties: Literal and Literary in the Poetry of Lorna Dee Cervantes, Cathy Song and Rita Dove By: Wallace, Patricia; MELUS, 1993 Fall; 18 (3): 3-19.
• Lorna Dee Cervantes's Dialogic Imagination By: Savin, Ada; Annales du Centre de Recherches sur l'Amérique Anglophone, 1993; 18: 269-77.
• Tres momentos del proceso de reconocimiento en la voz poética de Lorna D. Cervantes By: Alarcón, Justo S.. IN: López González, Malagamba, and Urrutia, Mujer y literatura mexicana y chicana: Culturas en contacto, II. Mexico City; Tijuana: Colegio de México; Colegio de la Frontera Norte; 1990. pp. 281–285
• Lorna Dee Cervantes (6 August 1954 - ) By: Fernández, Roberta. IN: Lomelí and Shirley, Chicano Writers: First Series. Detroit, MI: Gale; 1989. pp. 74–78
• Chicana Literature from a Chicana Feminist Perspective By: Yarbro-Bejarano, Yvonne. IN: Herrera-Sobek and Viramontes, Chicana Creativity and Criticism: Charting New Frontiers in American Literature. Houston: Arte Publico; 1988. pp. 139–145
• La búsqueda de la identidad en la literatura chicana/tres textos By: Alarcón, Justo S.; Confluencia: Revista Hispanica de Cultura y Literatura, 1987 Fall; 3 (1): 137-143.
• Chicana Literature from a Chicana Feminist Perspective By: Yarbro-Bejarano, Yvonne; The Americas Review: A Review of Hispanic Literature and Art of the USA, 1987 Fall-Winter; 15 (3-4): 139-145.
• Notes toward a New Multicultural Criticism: Three Works by Women of Color By: Crawford, John F.. IN: Harris and Aguero, A Gift of Tongues: Critical Challenges in Contemporary American Poetry. Athens: U of Georgia P; 1987. pp. 155–195
• Bernice Zamora y Lorna Dee Cervantes: Una estética feminista By: Bruce-Novoa; Revista Iberoamericana, 1985 July-Dec.; 51 (132-133): 565-573.
• Emplumada: Chicana Rites-of-Passage By: Seator, Lynette; MELUS, 1984 Summer; 11 (2): 23-38.
• Soothing Restless Serpents: The Dreaded Creation and Other Inspirations in Chicana Poetry By: Rebolledo, Tey Diana; Third Woman, 1984; 2 (1): 83-102.
• Interview with Lorna Dee Cervantes By: Monda, Bernadette; Third Woman, 1984; 2 (1): 103-107.

External links

Poems

• "Refugee Ship"
• Lorna Dee Cervantes profile and 1 poem at the Academy of American Poets.
• Lorna Dee Cervantes b. 1954 at the Poetry Foundation.

Audio / video

• Laura Dee Cervantes at YouTube