Each year, SCR presents the Ronald Moran Prize for the best fiction and poetry submissions of the year. This year’s poetry winner is María Esquinca for her poem “Dream In Which I Return Home,” published in SCR’s Spring 2024 56.2 Issue.
One of our assistant editors, Sage Short, interviewed María Esquinca about dreams – worldly, metaphorical, and lyrical. The two also spoke (via email) about María’s new book of poems Where Heaven Sinks, which, in the words of University of Nevada Press, is “an experimental collection set against the backdrop of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, weaving fragmented verses, striking imagery and bold typography to confront the brutal realities of immigration and identity.”
The interview had been lightly edited for clarity and consistency.
SS – In “Dream In Which I Return Home” [the SCR prize-winning poem], we get so many literally dream-like images and language (the moon screeches / vomits indigo / you cup palmfuls of dirt / swallow grime and good earth / pink paisley curtains spill / out of your parents’ / bedroom window / like a butchered tongue). The poem spans only one sentence accompanied by fantastic punchy line breaks, often enjambed in a way that makes me believe in the double entendre (out of your parents’). How do you make decisions regarding form and language? Do ideas of borderlands surround language in your poems?
ME – First of all, thank you for such a thoughtful question and for such an intentional reading of that poem. I think about form a lot, I often want the poem to augment the meaning of the poem. I’m a reader that gets excited by collections with poems that span various forms both traditional and experimental, and so I think that is reflected in my own choices. I came from a journalism background before studying poetry. Journalism is a form of writing bound by very specific stylistic rules. So, when I arrived at poetry I felt freed by the open page, the lack of rules was exciting to me. So I find freedom and play in form. It’s often the thing I struggle with the most as well, because sometimes I’m trying to fit the poem into different containers before I find the right one. In this poem in particular, I wanted the form to augment the surreal/dream aspect of this poem, I used it to help me enjamb the lines in surprising ways. In terms of the language, because this poem is set in a dream landscape, I wanted to use images and words that were both grounded in the real world, like a house, curtains, rooms, but then juxtaposed with the sorts of unexpected images that come out of a dream, so then for example the moon “vomits indigo.” I was thinking how can I use imagery/language to take this poem into a dream landscape? Lastly, because I am a person that grew up in a border town, bridges, walls, borders often are part of the poetry because they are a reflection of my experience. Both my literal experience, the place I am writing about, but also beyond that, in a more philosophical or fundamental way, as a fronteriza, it’s a part of experiencing the word that is inherently a part of me. And I’m often thinking of the ways in which I can also create those borders in my poems. The border is always informing my poetry.
SS – As a Xicana fronteriza and abolitionist, what are your biggest concerns when you’re writing poems? Do you find these identity categories influencing your work always or often? Are dreamscapes or the denial of them (but this is not a dream) a way for you to discover or shape your poems?
ME – As a Xicana, fronteriza, and abolitionist, my biggest concern is the liberation and freedom of Black, Brown and Indigenous people. I wrote this collection during Donald Trump’s first term, and it will come out during his second term, where we already have, within a few months of this administration, witnessed the further obliteration of human rights, the U.S. continuing to participate and facilitate the genocide of Palestinian people, the repression of student activists—just today, I read reports of ICE attempting to enter schools and arrest children as young as three. So yes, the categories I used to identify myself absolutely influence my work. People are dying every day in this country, and beyond, because of U.S. policy. I have a responsibility to use my art for the liberation of my people. Although not all my poems are explicitly political, my larger purpose will always be to be of service to my people. My biggest dream is that poetry can alchemize a reader for change. It is not enough, because the only thing that will save us is to organize, but poems are sparks. I believe in the transformative power of poetry.
SS – Dreams are often depicted in a shining light, including the idea of the Americandream. What do you have to say about the concept of dreams in either of these ideas in poetry?
ME – Dreams have always been something present in my life, and I’ve always been fascinated by the surreal aspect of dream, as well as being influenced by a long legacy of surrealism/magical realism in Latin America. I think dreams are like portals. They allow us to access the psyche and other wordly, I found myself visiting dreamscapes to explain the unexplainable. As I was writing this collection, dreams allowed me to put into language and image the horror of what I was seeing during Donald Trump’s first term. By entering the dream, we can also enter nightmares. They contain multitudes. The “American Dream” is like this too. As immigrant children, we’re told this is the country that our parents chose for us to have a better life, the land of opportunity, the melting pot, we get sold and told all these ideas about how welcoming this country is. But as we grow older, the American Dream distorts and becomes a nightmare. The same country that benefits from our labor, skills, life, is the same country that is perfectly okay with killing us.
SS – What are you currently dreaming about?
ME – I’m always dreaming of the worlds we will create when fascism is obliterated. I’m dreaming of a world with no borders, of no prisons, of free colleges and universities. I’m dreaming of my people dancing under the rain, drinking the sun, laughing like sparkles. I’m dreaming of Palestinian children going to a classroom that isn’t blown up.
SS – Your book Where Heaven Sinks is forthcoming from the University of Nevada Press after winning the 2024 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. How would you describe the collection?
ME – I would describe my forthcoming collection as a love letter to El Paso and my people. It took me about six years of applying to book contests to get this book out. I would have never imagined it would be chosen by Juan Felipe Herrera, for a prize to honor Andrés Montoya’s legacy. A poet who was my age when he passed away. A poet who also dearly loved his people, who is a poetic predecessor I am still learning from. I am so honored and full of gratitude.
Where Heaven Sinks is now available on the University of Nevada Press website and Amazon and is described as a tribute to those who have endured and a call to challenge the systems that oppress, a love letter, a memorial for those lost and a testament to the transformative power of language.
