Poems - Book 1 - Artist in Residence 2021
Our first submission from 2021 Artist in Residence Victoria Hurtado are two poems in her series.
Poem #1 "In after hours, I am Not a Mother/ Series of Mothering”:
This piece is about starting a new era, contemplating on the ending of the amateur young adult. It is about indulging in reckless imagination as a writer and woman. This poem brings to light a specific time in which a person has idle moments to focus on ideas rather than reality. This is a representation of selfishly spent moments right before the speaker must become an unorthodox mother to her grandmother. Her caretaker.
Poem #2 "Everyday/ Series of Mothering”:
This poem’s surface-level meaning is about routine and appreciation. As you go deeper, it is learning rhythm that works around one person who is bedridden. This piece is showing the process of learned nurturing and learned selflessness. It is about rediscovering the foundation of family, which is acknowledging the elders and the dead by living presently.
Acknowledgment:
After some time revising these poems, I know I have only taken one minuscule step into mothering. I’ve never given birth nor do I take care of others daily, but what I’ve taken out of this experience is that solely caring for others detaches you from the materialistic world in the most intimate, surreal way. It brings out a resilience that is quite unearthly, even though it may be ironic in this way.
You lose track of time, your own personal needs, and this nurturing spirit that’s grown within you tells you to be okay with it.
I’ve grown so much from my grandmother’s death. Even after her passing, she has given me another reason why I have a passion for writing. It gives me purpose. It gives me a daily reminder to live, and to document my living through art.
- Victoria Hurtado, 2021 Artist in Residence
In after hours, I am Not a Mother/ Series of Mothering
once I sit down
no one sits around
back washing
words/ as gradient
bentley blue
to disputed black after hours
as chair waits cautiously,
sitting sizzling/whistled
to a noir & fueled
heartbreak looking for
lamp/ seeing nothing
but notes in mind
about fake noises that go:
finally, the slumber
of my life
tangle tween my toes
each of mine
moss & hoes
melting after hours
this is my basket of life,
as if I know
one sun arose in blank
canvas style
of this room/ it’s flea season
underneath nail beds,
split bodies
lips whistled to go home
in these streets
I should dig like centipede
& watch how I grew
ovaries/ how I send
letters to my lovers & neck
grows twice as long
under the one sun/ one sun
admonished/ made as yolk
how I sentenced
myself to solitary &
learned this body
is pickled metamorphic/most
dropped to dark seas
where the basket
waits for me, gliding
down like a fallen leaf
to drown & take
faces, make vultures
& tame/ centipede daisy,
that is me, crawling
down the streets of cities,
growing moss & hoes – listening
to men whistle those tiny
songs/ I want to destroy
tame & drain
my blood/ make the tar sky
a violent sky
scream gentle as I
I sit, it’s after hours
scenic streams glistening
glide on face
down to my red chair
growing sunken
O how earthy it is to be
Everyday/ Series of Mothering
a world that demanded more everyday
which I cannot fathom now
series of living where grandmothers
are bedridden & misplace their words
to be unaware of the next change
keeps my body here & dressed
looking at the wall/
my great grandparents
all these walls
fitting my family into bunches
wallpaper floral patterns &
just so many fucking choices
to hold onto
to begin to remember to breathe/
plates of thoughts, I long to have
that same thinking time, but now
I’m asked if I’ve been eating
I am my grandmother’s mother now
& use my eyes to see
the greater things as I drink in peace
it’s okay if I swear & prove
my humanity now because it's mine,
now
nighttime,
saying again the greater things
as I embellish my grandmother
in sheets