Miriam Sagan and Ana Consuelo Matiella Read Poetry • Live on Zoom

Presented by Teatro Paraguas

Free • Donations to Teatro Paraguas gratefully accepted.

Miriam Sagan will read poetry and Ana Consuelo Matiella will read excerpts from her collection of short stories live on Zoom, as part of the ongoing series of virtual poetry readings from Teatro Paraguas.

Miriam Sagan is the author of over thirty books of poetry, fiction, and memoir. Her most recent include Bluebeard's Castle (Red Mountain, 2019) and A Hundred Cups of Coffee (Tres Chicas, 2019). She is a two-time winner of the New Mexico/Arizona Book Award, as well as a recipient of the City of Santa Fe Mayor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, and a New Mexico Literary Arts Gratitude Award. She has been a writer in residence in four national parks, Yaddo, MacDowell, Gullkistan in Iceland, Kura Studio in Japan, and a dozen more remote and interesting places. She works with text and sculptural installation as part of the creative team Maternal Mitochondria in venues ranging from RV Parks to galleries. She founded and directed the creative writing program at Santa Fe Community College until her retirement. Her poetry was set to music for the Santa Fe Women's Chorus, incised on stoneware for a haiku pathway, and projected as video inside an abandoned grain silo in rural Itoshima. Her blog is Miriam's Well.

From A Hundred Cups of Coffee
January 17, 2016
Cup #14
Home, kitchen table, instant coffee
I saw this on waking…
a clearing in the dream thicket
deciduous woods, like childhood
wherever that was, and snow ankle deep

goose girl, you’ve run again
from those who would rape and starve you
with a pocket full of berries
or Red Riding Hood, you put on your hat
the silly mittens
with every finger knitted a different color
and finally the hoodie
the color of what is supposed to stay inside but
doesn’t always comply—blood, rage, a desire
to put yourself first
to not bring the basket of delicacies
to the demented grandmother
who asks repeatedly
is that for me?
and—where are my car keys?
better to sit and drink the wine yourself
as if there were no wolf
because maybe there isn’t
and to walk
in the opposite direction
of what you were told to.
—Miriam Sagan

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Ana Consuelo Matiella was born in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico and raised in Ambos Nogales by a clan of Spaniards and Mexicans. Her fondest memories are of spending late Sonoran afternoons with her mothers, tías and madrinas, drinking café con leche, listening to their stories and trying to make sense of the world. Ana Consuelo is a fotonovela producer and health communications consultant. Her first book was The Truth About Alicia and Other Stories, a Camino del Sol book published by the University of Arizona Press.

Ms Matiella is author of Las Madrinas: Life Among My Mothers - Tres Chicas Press. She is a storyteller and Co-Founder and Content Director of De Las Mias, a bilingual digital platform for Latinas. She was a columnist for the Santa Fe New Mexican for over 10 years and has written extensively on Multicultural Health Education. She divides her time between Santa Fe, New Mexico and Portland, Oregon.

The truth about Alicia was that she wasn't that stable to begin with. So when she did what she did, no one was very surprised. Still, it was shocking, the way she followed them from the hardware store to the woman's house, the way she broke the sliding glass door with the tire jack, the way she found them in bed. It was more than she could take, her being seven months pregnant and all. It only took two shots.
excerpt, “The Truth About Alice”
The Truth About Alice and Other Stories
University of Arizona Press, 2002

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