M. Miriam Herrera
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (February 2019) |
M Miriam Herrera | |
---|---|
Born | Sutherland, Nebraska | June 14, 1963
Language | English; Spanish |
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | University of Illinois, Chicago |
Genre | Poetry |
Literary movement | Converso, Chicano |
Notable works | Kaddish for Columbus |
Partner | Gregor Kovacic |
M. Miriam Herrera is an American author and poet. She teaches at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and currently teaches Introduction to Mexican Studies as well as Composition and Rhetoric and Creative Writing. She is a Lecturer with the Department of Writing Language Studies, and a Mexican American Studies Program (MASC) Affiliate. Her poetry often explores Mexican American or Chicano life and her Crypto-Jewish and Native American (Cherokee) heritage, but mainly the universal themes of nature, family, myth, and the transcendent experience. Herrera was born to natives of the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. She was born in Sutherland, Nebraska, where her parents had been working in the sugar-beet fields. She was raised in Aurora, Illinois, where her parents moved to escape a migratory life of farm work.
Herrera's literary influences include Theodore Roethke, Gwendolyn Brooks, Gary Soto, Lucille Clifton, Flannery O'Conner, and Pablo Neruda. Herrera began writing poetry as a grade school student when she met Gwendolyn Brooks, former Poet Laureate of Illinois, when Brooks read her poetry at Herrera's elementary school.
Herrera attended the University of Illinois Program For Writers and earned her Master of Arts degree in Creative Writing in 1981. She studied with John Frederic Nims, the editor of Poetry Magazine; Ralph J. Mills, editor of The Selected Letters of Theodore Roethke and The Notebooks of David Ignatow; and Paul Carroll, founder of the Poetry Center of Chicago and of Big Table Magazine. While attending the University of Illinois at Chicago, Herrera was involved in the Chicano literary community, which included Sandra Cisneros, Carlos Cumpian, Norma Alarcón, Ana Castillo, and Ralph Cintron, et al., as her contemporaries.
Herrera taught Creative Writing, Poetry Writing, Chicano/Latino Literature, and Expository Writing at the University of Illinois at Chicago; the University of New Mexico, Los Alamos; South Bay College, Hawthorne, California; and Russell Sage College, Troy, NY. She is a member of the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, CA, and is the founder of the Writing Studio, Medusa Community of Poets & Writers, and the Audre Lorde Poetry Prize at Russell Sage College. Currently she is a member of the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies and serves as the Poetry Editor for their journal, HaLapid.
Herrera descends from Crypto-Jews or Conversos. These converts to Catholicism escaped the Spanish Inquisition for the New World where they intermarried with the indigenous peoples and old Christians who populated the American Southwest. Her poetry collection, Kaddish for Columbus explores the enigma of these divergent identities and landscapes the poet inhabits:
"Mythic borders appear in the poems as a metaphor for life that are found beyond physical space—the borders between peoples, ideas, religions, landscapes; between science and spirit, between self; how identities are transformed when one side collides with another; how the poet, a descendant of both Columbus and Native Americans, reconciles ambiguity." [1]
M. Miriam Herrera has been published in many literary journals, such as Southwestern American Literature, a scholarly journal that includes literary criticism, fiction, poetry, and books. It has published premier works by and about some of the most significant writers of the Southwest. Herrera has also published with Earth's Daughters, a literary arts periodical, which publishes women's works from all over the United States; Albatross, which publishes mostly poetry written in free verse and narrative style. Herrera has also published in ArtLife Gallery, highlighting exclusively curated works from a wide array of internationally renowned and emerging artists, photographers, and sculptors, and also secondary works from people like Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Banksy and more. Herrera has also published with Blue Mesa Review, and Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry, whose mission is to discover, develop, and promote new writing. They have also published works from such renowned writers as Michael Blumenthal, Pablo Neruda, William Stafford, Mark Strand and many others.
Books
- Kaddish for Columbus: Finishing Line Press (2009)
Poetry
- Southwestern American Literature (2009): "Ahuacatl," "Blessing the Animals," "La Malinche"
- Albatross: "Elegy for an Angelito" (2009)
- Earth's Daughters (2008): "Once I Heard My Father Cry"
- Rainmakers Prayers Anthology (2008): "Kiva at Chaco Canyon"
- New Millennium Writings (2006–2007): "In the Calyx"
- Squaw Valley Poetry Anthology (2005): "At the Edge of Town"
- Artlife: The Original Limited Edition Monthly (Vol. 25, No. 8, Issue No. 273) "Witch Wife"
- New Zoo Poetry Review (Vol. 4): "Father's Love Letter"
- Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry (Vol. 41, No. 2): "Kaddish for Columbus"
- Blue Mesa Review (No. 3): "Kiva at Chaco Canyon"
- Ecos: A Latino Journal of People's Culture and Literature (Vol. 2, No. 2): "To Jenny," "First Snow," "Waterfall"; (Vol. 2, No. 1): "Visit Home," "Love Poem for Charles"
- Black Maria (Vol. 4, No. 2): "Driving in Fog," "Dream of Three Girls at Play"
Notes
References
- Mexican American Studies Academic Program
- Kaddish for Columbus, Finishing Line Press
- New Millennium Writings, Issue 16
- Artlife – The Original Limited Edition Monthly
- A Collection of Poetry From Kaddish for Columbus
- Winning Writers – Best Resources for Poets & Writers
- A Celebration of Women Writers: Latina Writers
- Poets & Writers - Directory of American Poets & Writers
- LatinoStories.com - Latino Authors
External links
- Living people
- American poets of Mexican descent
- American people of Cherokee descent
- American people of Mexican-Jewish descent
- University of New Mexico faculty
- The Sage Colleges
- People from Aurora, Illinois
- People from Lincoln County, Nebraska
- University of Illinois at Chicago alumni
- Writers from Nebraska
- American women poets